The Irishman

Walk past any place where movie posters are seen, and a movie poster that you might see is for Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. It sounds like a London gangster caper, the type of film which which Ritchie is associated—although the Sherlock Holmes films and Aladdin are all a successful departure. And Martin Scorsese is famed for GoodFellas and Casino… but he has also made Age of Innocence. This isn’t to say that Ritchie is the British Scorsese, but rather that when a Director returns to his point of greatest success it’s either a source of much positive press (in the case of Martin Scorsese) or eye-rolling (for Ritchie).

And maybe this isn’t fair. Scorsese has made some comments about populist film sagas, and has made his latest film for Netflix. It screened in cinemas but in a way Netflix is good because at almost three and a half hours, The Irishman spans the clock the way its story spans the calendar. This is done through digital de-ageing of its stars Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci (who are reunited for the first time since Casino). It also marks the first collaboration between Scorsese and Al Pacino, who’s in full-on Pacino mode to play Jimmy Hoffa in a film that’s partly about the union boss. Based on a crime memoir that may shed light (or something very dark) on the truth of what happened to the Teamsters Union boss who disappeared one July day in 1975, it’s a remarkable film and not just because of the running time.

The film uses its running time to ponder a lot, but it’s not slow like a Terence Malick film… This is  a long life story told in flashback from a nursing home with DeNiro’s character Frank Sheeran talking at the end of his own life. The narrative goes back to show how he began as a driver who becomes the protégé of Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), and gradually becomes a more important part of the Cosa Nostra. The story meanders nicely through Florida, Cuba, the Bay of Pigs, and finally to 1970s New York and the unions, and people are in and out of the narrative at different times, so we get some Harvey Keitel for a while—which is a delight.

There are moments of violence, of course, because the whole film is based on a book called “I hear you paint houses?” which is a metaphor for killing people. But the hits are sudden explosions of gunfire and blood which are unpleasant but not played for glory. It’s a film that’s devoid of trickery and full of Scorsese’s bravado with the camera. And whilst I don’t think he loves these workmanlike murderers, he certainly details their lives in every way: from the parties to the church to the back alley, quiet restaurant, or empty house where the shootings take place. 

There’s much to appreciate in DeNiro’s performance. At one point the de-aged actor looks like an impression of himself: somehow the de-ageing is perfect and you’re almost watching that scene in The Untouchables just before he takes up the baseball bat. But this is a masterful performance: the guy can play the youngster who doesn’t really know much other than how to drive a truck and stay out of trouble, and he learns gradually to paint houses and “do the carpentry”. It may seem ridiculous to compare this to some of DeNiro’s more recent work but it’s reminiscent of when he plays a senior man who goes to work at a junior level in The Intern. 

There’s any number of scenes between DeNiro and the cast beyond the “good fellas”: particularly his daughter, who discovers when she is a very little girl what her father is doing, and judges him continually with just a look. These people were strongly moral in most senses, but not when it came to running Cosa Nostra justice.

Joe Pesci had retired but returns for a quiet performance as a gentle-looking man who has people to worry for him about the other stuff. His scenes with Al Pacino are especially incredible and although Pacino is at his most Pacino-esque for much of the film, the result makes it completely forgivable. This is an incredibly long but endlessly fascinating film.