The Irishman
★★★★★
Scorsese rounds up the old gang for a late-career masterpiece Dir: Martin Scorsese 3hrs 28mins (15)
Martin Scorsese at the helm; Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci reunited for the first time in decades; Al Pacino thrown in for good measure? Well, this was never likely to be a disaster, said Kevin Maher in The Times. The surprise isn’t that
The Irishman is simply excellent: it’s that its 76-year-old director has found “something new and invigorating” to do with familiar-sounding gangster material. The movie is rich in Scorsese’s signature flourishes: glamorous tracking shots, freeze frames, sudden sickening violence. But his latest offering is far more than just a gangster flick. It’s also a decadesspanning “historical commentary”, and – ultimately – a meditation on mortality itself.
The Irishman is the kind of “sprawling, grown-up” movie that all too rarely gets made these days, said Donald Clarke in The Irish Times. It begins with one of those trademark tracking shots – a teasing echo of the famous scene in Scorsese’s Goodfellas
– only this time we’re not entering a nightclub, it’s a care home. And our guide is one of its ageing residents, Frank Sheeran (De Niro), on whose memoir the film is based. Flashbacks show him befriending the Mafia boss Russell Bufalino (Pesci) while both are stationed in Italy during the Second World War, an encounter that kicks off his postwar career as an enforcer. He goes on to become a “house-painter” (Mafia slang for an
assassin) not only for Bufalino, but also for the ebullient union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), who has ties with the Mob. But when Bufalino and Hoffa fall out, Sheeran is forced to pick a side.
For the early scenes, Scorsese used digital technology to de-age his cast, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph, and the “startlingly plausible” effect enhances a trio of great performances. Pesci is tremendous; a “grippingly subtle” De Niro is better than he’s been in years; and Pacino, “fully energised but controlled”, gets some superbly amusing scenes, including a fist fight with a New Jersey crime boss, sparked by the question of whether it’s disrespectful to wear shorts to a meeting. What lifts The Irishman above other crime films is that it explores the psychological aftermath of violence, said Ian Freer in Empire. We see how, in Sheeran’s case, all the killing has “murdered his ability to feel”. The film’s ending catches you off guard with its emotional impact, said Stephanie Zacharek in Time magazine. That’s when you realise that far from glorifying it, Scorsese’s film is a study in the limitations of machismo. Subscribers to Netflix, which funded the film, will be able to enjoy it in the comfort of their homes from 27 November, said Donald Clarke. But take my advice and watch this “sprawling gangster epic” at the cinema. “We owe it to Scorsese to see it in all its massive glory.”