FILM OF THE WEEK
The Irishman
Cert: 16. Now showing.
The world is changing apace, and that goes for screen entertainment too. The production by Netflix of this incredible $160million monument to the ScorseseDe Niro axis is confirmation, should you need it, that the small screen is now where the power lies. When a huge chunk of change was needed to finance the pair’s long-held ambition to make a crowning crime saga, it was Netflix, not a traditional studio, that came forward with the cheque.
The modernity of all this makes for an interesting counterpoint to the oldfashioned comforts of The Irishman, a playful and at times speculative biopic of mob enforcer Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran (De Niro). Adapted by Steven Zaillian from Charles Brandt’s 2004 chronicle, it portrays Sheeran as heavily involved in the infamous Jimmy Hoffa fiasco that rocked US society in the 1960s and 1970s.
Union overlord Hoffa (Al Pacino) has ties to the mob, namely Pennsylvania’s Bufalino crime family, whom Frank has been on the books with ever since a chance encounter with don Russell Bufalino (a gloriously composed Joe Pesci) in the post-war years. Frank becomes Hoffa’s “minder”, meaning the mob is able to keep a close eye on their prize thoroughbred.
Men with preposterous gold rings kiss each other on the cheeks, wiseguys get whacked, and Scorsese sits you on his knee by way of reflective voiceover narration and an era-setting jukebox. But in a post-Sopranos world, the Italian-American mob saga needs more, and Scorsese and De Niro (who both have production credits) know this. A cross-state roadtrip with Frank and Russell is used as the base to flashback to early years, but enclosing that again are the film’s poignant bookends — an elderly and infirm Frank in a home, dwelling on his life and largely abandoned by his family.
For a film stuck in production hell for a decade, it’s a relief to find The Irishman near the summit in Scorsese’s superlative career. Long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker and the visual FX team who cleanly “deage” the veteran cast deserve medals. Vitally, it feels like more than just the sum of its excellent parts.