THE IRISHMAN 15
OUT NOW CINEMAS 27 NOVEMBER NETFLIX
De Niro, Pesci, Keitel. Wiseguys, gleaming Cadillacs, pinkie rings, doo-wop music, the Copacabana. The Irishman is, unmistakably, a Martin Scorsese picture, the long, rich shadows of Mean Streets, GoodFellas and Casino stretching through its 209-minute running time. But it’s also colder and more distant than its predecessors, with the mob lifestyle rendered less glamorous, more utilitarian. Themes of ageing, guilt and death haunt the film. This is Scorsese’s summation, his twilight masterpiece, his Once Upon A Time In America.
It starts in the early-noughties, as Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) looks back on a road trip he made with Pennsylvanian crime boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci, terrific) in 1975. They’re heading for a wedding in Detroit – and some bigger business en route – and from here we step further back in time to see how Sheeran, a meat-truck driver, became the Bufalino family’s trusted footsoldier and hitman.
One of Sheeran’s assignments is to babysit volatile Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino in his first gig for Scorsese, doing his best work since the ’90s), whose Teamsters Union has underworld connections. Hoffa’s disappearance
in July 1975 remains officially unsolved, though The Irishman, with its Steve Zaillian script based on Charles Brandt’s 2004 memoir I Heard You Paint Houses, presents Sheeran’s persuasive version of events. Set primarily in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s but stretching back to Sheeran’s service in Italy during World War II, The Irishman picks at a Gordian knot of the personal and political, Washington legislature and organised crime. The Kennedys, Cuba, Castro, the Bay of Pigs, Nixon, Watergate… this is the cinematic equivalent of a James Ellroy novel, or a Godfather saga-style journey to the dark heart of America, minus the romanticism. Gone are GoodFellas’ whip-pans, crash zooms and freeze frames; the camera is always moving, but unhurriedly, gracefully, and the palette is wintry in a film that favours quietude over brio.
As for the fanfared de-ageing effects, they are impressive rather than seamless, and there’s no hiding the cast’s stiff limbs. No matter: the force of the performances carries us through. Three and a half hours glide by as Scorsese questions the noxious male ego (women are sidelined, but for a reason) and the soulless actions of the mechanical men who make up the mob. With sin comes sorrow, and a tremendous poignancy enters the picture as shootings and car bombings give way to strokes, arthritis and cancer; to regret, solitude and spiritual devastation.