Steering clear of any cheerful wrap up to his vaunted oeuvre of mob movies, Martin Scorsese gathers his major players and rolls out a masterful, defining epic that often hovers on the dark side.
A combined 307 years old, Scorsese and his stars Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, render an enthralling tale that seemingly disaffirms its three-and-half hour running time. Ever the swami of controlled shots and adroit filmmaking, Scorsese tracks, pans, zooms, and cuts his way to what feels more like a lean two hours. When a creatively long dormant Robert DeNiro and a long-retired, stunning Joe Pesci are on the screen together, time flies as we watch two of cinema’s all-time greatest actors. And by the way, it is not only DeNiro’s incredible acting that is revitalized here. Due to CGI technology, his physical presence is also nicely rejuvenated to de-age him through much of the film. (Equally tricky, Philly’s favorite red gravy classic Villa di Roma shows up twice in the film, its interior curiously reimagined.)
The Irishman is based on a true crime memoir by Frank Sheeran (DeNiro), whose book claims a certain knowledge of the disappearance of larger-than-life union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). While Al Pacino of late often seems to be shooting the works and acting in broad outline, here he absolutely controls Hoffa’s brazen preening and hotdogging. His deft etching of Hoffa’s quirky mannerisms remains vivid in my memory days after screening the film. It’s DeNiro’s ninth collaboration with Scorsese, Pacino’s first.
Russell Bufalino (Pesci), an eerily self-restrained mob boss who oozes gravitas, takes World War II veteran Sheeran under his wing and Frank soon is doing much different jobs than driving a meat truck. Pesci headlines a terrific supporting cast. An excellent Stephen Graham plays Anthony Provenzano, a union rival to Hoffa and it’s worth the price of admission to witness the two of them having it out in a prison cafeteria. Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco portrays the waggishly swaggering Joey Gallo, Ray Romano a mob lawyer, and a mesmerizing Anna Paquin is Sheehan’s grown daughter who practically without uttering a line, expresses a remorseful resentment toward her dad.
Sheeran’s rise up the ranks, from the meat delivery guy to Jimmy Hoffa’s right hand man, provides the arc of the film. Its dual framing devices are a car ride taken by Bufalino and Sheeran and their wives (Bufalino hates flying) from Eastern Pennsylvania to Detroit which in turn is framed by a much older Sheeran reminiscing in a nursing home. The mission in Detroit is to settle down an out-of-hand Hoffa, who, desperately going after regaining his lost union power, has proceeded less than cautiously in stepping on toes of those known for providing dire outcomes for their opponents. It’s not long after Sheeran starts doing some jobs for mobster Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio (Bobby Cannavale) and his boss Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel) that Scorsese begins to suddenly pause the action with onscreen footnotes foretelling many of the film’s characters’ eventual fates, usually methods and dates of death.
If hardly anyone seems to get out of this messy business alive, it’s often not much better for the living if Sheeran is any example. While he takes it all in stride, the price he eventually pays for a life of crime is not what is usually depicted in films of this nature. Scorsese is putting out a warning but it’s a cautioning so wrapped in an unconditional compassion that it renders itself judgement free but hardly devoid of mournfulness. Made to look like a physically much younger Robert DeNiro throughout much of the movie, is this final, older Frank Sheeran also refurbished spiritually or is it much too late?