Review: "The Irishman" on Netflix

[Steve Timko]

It took two nights to do it, but I finished “The Irishman.” It is a good movie and I recommend it, even at 3.5 hours. Some are touting it as one of Director Martin Scorsese’s best. I would say it’s his best in 20 years, maybe, but it doesn’t rank with “Raging Bull,” “Taxi Driver” or “Mean Streets.”
Let me get this out of the way up front. Frank Sheeran did not kill Jimmy Hoffa, as the movie shows. Sheeran was shopping around a book about his life as a Mafia hit man and no one would take it. Then he decided to claim responsibility for killing Jimmy Hoffa and suddenly he had a publisher. Several of my Facebook friends are involved with the Mob Museum in Las Vegas and they were active posting links to dispute Sheerin’s version of the Hoffa case. Here’s an example.
https://themobmuseum.org/blog/new-scorsese-movie-spotlight-jimmy-hoffas-disappearance/
Scorsese seems to obliquely address this historical problem in his appearance with Jimmy Kimmel. He says if it’s not factually true, then the movie is more about the characters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N80s8hBLaJM
The problem with this is that people believe Oliver Stone’s version of history in the JFK assassination and Nixon and Watergate. Stone seems to have crossed the line to propagandist. Scorsese seems to just be interested in telling a good story.
And it is a good story. It’s a good primer for people who don’t know who entwined the Mob was with American society. Bribery. Politicians and judges in people’s pockets. Jury tampering.  It was a little jarring each time Allen Dorfman was on the screen. In 1973, Paul Laxalt, a year after leaving Nevada’s governor’s office, attended Dorfman’s 50th birthday party in Chicago. Laxalt was a close friend of Ronald Reagan and the next year elected U.S. Senator in Nevada. Laxalt and Dorfman were intertwined. Keep that in mind when you watch “The Irishman.”
Joe Pesci has gotten praise for his work and it is deserved. It is definitely a different Joe Pesci. Al Pacino also got praise for his role as Hoffa. I didn’t buy it. Physically, he looked like Hoffa. But Pacino’s voice does not sound like the Midwestern corn-fed guy that Hoffa was. It’s the equivalent of Paul Newman playing a blue-eyed American Indian. I grew up in a town with heavy mining union activity. I walked picket lines at ages 3 and 6. I think my father believed having a child there calmed tempers. They were miner’s union members, not Teamsters. They weren’t fans of Hoffa. But they were quite familiar with him. Comedian Jim Norton played Don Rickles and he likely recited a Rickles joke exactly but his impersonation was not convincing.
Two other comedians deserve praise. Ray Romano did good work as a union lawyer. I’ve praised him before in this group for “Get Shorty.” Romano is convincing as a cool-headed lawyer working on the dark side. We’ve also discussed Sebastian Maniscalco. I wondered why he deserved a second appearance on “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” Maniscalco has a smaller role as a mobster named Crazy Joe but he lives up to the nickname. Gotta give credit where credit is due.
The big gimmick for this movie is that they use CGI to make the actors more youthful or older. All in all it works. DeNiro and Pacino look much younger for a good part of the film.
Netflix has spent a lot of money to produce a good movie. I hope it pays off for them. But I’ve got to wonder if maybe they could have made three Coen Brothers movies and film fans would have been better off.

[Steve Timko]

Here is an article that talks about a couple of other likely Hoffa killers.

LINK

It identifies Salvatore "Sally Bugs" Briguglio and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano as likely suspects.

[M-D November]

I watched "The Irishman" a few weeks back over three consecutive nights. Honestly, it struck me as being "Casino" with less interesting characters. But my main issue was the director's inability (or unwillingness) to self-edit; the whole thing felt very self-indulgent. There were whole scenes that could have been edited out without affecting the story - including a solid 30 seconds of Pesci & DeNiro just staring at each other from across a nightclub table. I was (half-)joking on Oscar night that I'd like to download the film and edit it down to just the stuff that drives the story forward, and call it the "Get to the F**KING POINT ALREADY" edition.

[PGage]

I watched it last month in one setting, and liked it, even more than Casino. But I mildly agree with you about the indulgent editing. I think it works as a long form, And would not like to see it butchered down to 140 min or something, it but could be cut by 20 minutes or so with no loss of actual narrative, just by shortening 10” off a number of scenes that feel like someone forgot to yell cut! Maybe Scorsese is trying to make a comment on old men shuffling slowly off stage with this technique, if so he misjudged the effectiveness of the technique.

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 9:47 AM M-D November <mdnov...@gmail.com> wrote:

I watched "The Irishman" a few weeks back over three consecutive nights.  Honestly, it struck me as being "Casino" with less interesting characters.  But my main issue was the director's inability (or unwillingness) to self-edit; the whole thing felt very self-indulgent.  There were whole scenes that could have been edited out without affecting the story - including a solid 30 seconds of Pesci & DeNiro just staring at each other from across a nightclub table.  I was (half-)joking on Oscar night that I'd like to download the film and edit it down to just the stuff that drives the story forward, and call it the "Get to the F**KING POINT ALREADY" edition.

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