The Irishman

I’m sorry, but with this film I have the same problem as with almost every gangster movie focused exclusively on the mobsters. When the efforts of detectives or courts to break the gang get some space (like in this year’s The Traitor or in Scorsese’s The Departed), I’m fine with it, but I hate to watch the fates of characterless, arrogant assholes whose actions, though not directly glorified by the film language, are presented as something cool that should “entertain” the viewers. More so when the main character, besides not having any character, also lacks any interesting qualities; and more so when it has an unreasonable four-hour long run. The Irishman is well made, I guess, and it will satisfy the fans of mafia opuses, but I couldn’t get anything out of it. The plot wasn’t interesting (moreover, despite a number of flashbacks, the conclusion is very predictable), I couldn’t even find any formal pearls, because, other than the digital deageing (that works so-so), there aren’t any. I didn’t find a single interesting scene that could be somehow formally attractive. In short, I only watched it out of respect for the gentlemen behind it, thanks to which, the last hour and a half or so is a little more interesting than the rest. But, even though I subscribe to the words that Scorsese addressed at Marvel, the sad truth is that I would rather watch again the last Avengers than The Irishman. (11/28/2019)

When, after roughly two hours, The Irishman stops switching between the two narrative lines and three different time planes that together set the film’s rhythm, it becomes clear that the wedding was not actually the primary destination of Frank’s journey. At the same time, one important character from Frank’s past comes into the road-movie framework. Contrary to the custom of accelerating the pace as the end approaches, the film slows down and becomes more focused, no longer engaging in a series of diversions and jumping between numerous people and events. We realise that the memory of a given event is of fundamental importance for Frank and he wants to recount it in as much detail as possible, step by step, minute by minute. Thanks to the context provided by the previous two hours, we concurrently comprehend what this is leading to and what the individual characters are experiencing. We start to understand that Frank had merely been carrying out another one of his missions, which usually ends with a house getting painted. ___ In the first narrative line, Frank is in the final phase of his life, just before his death. In the other, he is heading toward death. It seems that all of the events in his life involve death and dying in some way. The detached approach to killing well demonstrates Scorsese’s departure from the more dynamic style of his earlier mafia films. In The Irishman, violence is not “cool”; sometimes we don’t even see it, we only hear it from a distance. If an upbeat song is playing in the car during one of the murders, that is only because the driver turned on the radio to drown out the death rattle of the strangled victim. ___ Frank's blackened conscience, a reminder of his sins and the incompatibility of violent behaviour with the feeling of having a safe home, is represented by his daughter Peggy, thanks to whom we realise that Frank fills his emotional emptiness with words and diverts attention from his inner self to the outside. Though Frank’s relationship with his daughter may seem to be of secondary importance in the context of a story in which people die, cars explode and mobsters bribe top politicians, it is that relationship which best describes how Frank feels and what he longs for above all else: to go out into the world reconciled with himself and with his loved ones. Despite first appearances, the core of the film thus does not represent Frank’s involvement in the structures of the Italian-American mafia and trade unions, but what he lost due to his career advancement. Civil dialogue and time spent in the family circle appear to be more important than a detailed description of the underworld and a factual depiction of Frank’s work processes. Rather than an epic mafia saga, The Irishman is primarily an intimate drama about dysfunctional relationships and the constant presence of death, the basis of which we always carry within ourselves (as we realise thanks also to digitally rejuvenated acting veterans). 95% (01/15/2021)

A modern classic? It’s more of a you-wish gesture masterfully timed for the period when Scorsese stirred up a totally anachronistic debate about high and low. The film itself relies on the use of technologies that have been largely brought forth by Disney (Tron 2) and Marvel, and on the robust plan of Zailian's screenplay, which again lavishly beats around the bush, but does not work much with the depth of the characters. De Niro's Sheeran is therefore a static and slowly shifting cruel mountain of CGI flesh, and his picaresque pilgrimage through the history of American trade union-mafia intercourse drags on like an old man. The characters who are age thirty move about like they are eighty and in some ways, this accurately captures the essence of Scorsese's work - this stocky, corrugated professorship that lacks elegance and fun segments, but as a whole functions more like a cinephile fetish and an obelisk worshiping the past. At the same time, however, it fits very well into Netflix's portfolio, where the absence of a strict dramaturgy is confused with a robust creative vision. Martin is too good a director to make a disguised film, but his firm The Irishman is as stimulating as De Niro's face when he fires lead into German prisoners in a miserable, unintentional paraphrase of Call of Duty. For me, it’s on the thin edge of cringe. (12/08/2019)

As much as I love gangster movies, I'm not too happy with Irishman. Martin Scorsese returns to the genre that made him famous and assembles together a cast of mafia legends, but he fails to draw me into the plot at all. I enjoyed the first hour, where Robert De Niro gets into the gangster underworld as an assassin, but once Al Pacino showed up, the film stopped being all that interesting. I was disappointed that there were no shootouts and even the few murders looked pretty unnatural. I wasn't too interested in the plot, the dialogue had nothing to engage me, it's not suspenseful or tense either, so I really don't know where to look for plus points. I'd rather watch Scarface again, but at least I didn't suffer like I did with the new Tarantino film. 6/10. (12/02/2019)

An unbelievably complex guide to the life of a person who has outlived everybody and is settling accounts of his life as the end draws near. The crème of the acting profession came together to film the long-postponed project I Heard You Paint Houses, led by the director eminently best suited to the task. Pacino gives a masterful performance as union boss Jimmy Hoffa, but Pesci’s return is a blessing for the entire film. The nuances, the faint hints, the one-liners delivered with zest… This is going to score a lot of Oscars. The digital effects are not perfect, but only seem to do harm to De Niro’s performance. But after a while you stop noticing. It’s such a good story. Definitely the film of the year. I chose us over him. (11/28/2019)