Is this €127m Netflix epic DeNiro’s greatestever mob movie?
He’s gathered all the old gang – Scorsese, Pacino, Pesci. The ageing stars look decades younger thanks to ‘miraculous’ CGI. So...
Robert De Niro first read Charles Brandt’s book The Irishman soon after it was published in 2004. He was convinced this tale of what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa, the notorious trade union leader who disappeared in 1975, was ripe for the big screen.
‘I read it and thought this story is great,’ said De Niro, quickly alerting his long-time collaborator Martin Scorsese.
Scorsese agreed this was something they had to do and Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel were soon brought on board. Yet even with the prospect of such a cast, with Scorsese at the helm, it took 15 years to come to fruition.
Finally, after a marathon process involving 108 shooting days, after consuming a budget north of €127million that uses state-of-the-art technology to make the ageing stars look decades younger, The Irishman is to be released next month. This is a movie that gets under the skin of its main protagonist, thanks largely to a performance as good as any De Niro has delivered in 25 years.
It tells the story of Frank Sheeran (played by De Niro), an underworld enforcer of brutal repute known as The Irishman, and his connection to the notorious Hoffa (played by Al Pacino). Towards the end of his life, Sheeran decided to confess all to Brandt. He spoke on one proviso: none of it was to be published before his death.
The story begins when Sheeran, a muscular young New Yorker, joined up to fight in World War II. He saw a staggering 411 days of action, leaving a trail of destruction across Europe, and returned to civilian life seriously damaged, his moral compass skewed beyond recovery.
Soon his lack of qualms about employing maximum violence brought him to the attention of the Mob, and Sheeran began to do business with a collection of wise guys. His biggest contact was Russell Bufalino (played by Joe Pesci), who came to rely on Sheeran’s quick, clean and, above all, untraceable way of dealing with problems. So when a highly placed political connection of Bufalino’s needed some assistance, there was only one man for the job.
The first thing Hoffa said to Sheeran was: ‘I heard you paint houses.’ In gangster terminology, this referred to redecorating the homes of enemies in their own blood. So it was that Hoffa began to rely on Sheeran too.
Attorney General Bobby Kennedy became obsessed with convicting him, and when John F Kennedy was assassinated, Bobby suspected Hoffa was involved in his brother’s killing.
In 1967 Hoffa was jailed for jury tampering and fraud but he was pardoned by incoming President Richard Nixon in 1971. Hoffa soon announced his intention to run again for his old job. This didn’t sit well with the Mafia, and The Irishman was called in.
There were several moments in the process of turning the book into a movie that made De Niro despair it would ever come about. But the most significant obstacle was adapting the book’s lengthy timespan.
Initially, Scorsese decided to recruit age-appropriate lookalike actors. But since most of the action takes place when the characters are in their 40s, that approach would have robbed the stars of their meaty roles.
Then, in 2015, Scorsese learned of a new technology that he dubbed ‘youthification’. The actors perform scenes with electrodes attached to their face, which, after a CGI tinker, enables the years to fall away in the editing process. The effect is miraculous.
But the faces can’t tell the whole story and the actors were also obliged to move as if they were young again. But whatever the temporary pain, the result is extraordinary.
The Irishman is a tapestry of politics, crime and corruption that can only be described as epic.
The Irishman is released in cinemas on November 1 and on Netflix on November 27.