The Irishman

Throughout his career, Martin Scorsese has been accused of glamorizing the mob lifestyle in his films.  Perhaps The Irishman is his answer to those criticisms.  At particular moments in the film, when certain real-life mobsters are introduced, the movie will pause, and tell us when this particular person we're looking at died, and more precisely how.  The cause of death listed is always gruesome, usually multiple bullets to the head.  These people who are happy and enjoying life on camera will meet a grisly end in a short time.

But the most poignant response the movie takes to these criticisms is the first time we see Robert De Niro as Frank Sheehan.  He's in a retirement home, well past his prime, and an aging relic.  He no longer holds any power or influence, and all of his old mob friends are dead.  His family have also disowned him largely due to his criminal past.  He begins to talk to an unseen interviewer about his days in crime, and as his story unravels, it is sad, perhaps a bit nostalgic, and ultimately about how he ended up the broken and lonely old man that we see him as now.  With a running time of three and a half hours, it's a sprawling story to be sure.  Scorsese has swung for the fences with this one, making perhaps his most personal mob epic of his career.  Perhaps this idea would have worked better as a multi-part mini series instead of an extended feature film, but the film manages to get some undeniably powerful emotional moments.

The Irishman is also just a marvelously constructed film.  With fluid editing by Scorsese regular, Thelma Schoonmaker, the pace is constantly moving, even if the screenplay does get a little lost in all the details of the massive story from time to time.  It also recreates the era its story is set in perfectly, though precise settings that feel lived in rather than staged, and a vast number of perfectly matched music from the time on the soundtrack.  But most of all, we have the three central leads.  De Niro hasn't delivered a performance this memorable in a while, giving Frank a kind of quiet and steely power.  He is not showboating here.  His Frank Sheehan is a guy who starts out as a meat truck driver, and quickly works his way up the crime world through his friends and connections.  He is constantly believable, and fits perfectly back into working with Scorsese, as if he wouldn't.  Seeing De Niro play Frank as a man in his 30s (aided by digital de-aging effects provided by Industrial Light and Magic), up to the point when he is a forgotten old dinosaur of a man in a retirement home, is constantly convincing.

The other main roles are filled in by Joe Pesci, taking a break from retirement to appear in this, and Al Pacino, who surprisingly is making his first appearance in a Scorsese picture.  Playing the man responsible for bringing Frank into the criminal underworld, Pesci is not quite the hothead we usually remember him as here.  His Russell Bufalino is a powerful man capable of great cruelty, but he hides it with a quiet demeanor that can be disarming.  It is Pacino who has the showiest role of the three leads.  He plays Jimmy Hoffa, the famed labor union leader who during the main years the narrative takes place, was pretty much one of the most powerful people on the planet.  Pacino plays Hoffa like he knows it.  He is grand, he loves the attention he constantly gets, and he generally feels invincible.  Naturally, this power cannot last forever, and that is one of the central themes of the film.  These men are at the top of their game, and feel like they can do whatever they want.  Time passes, things change, and by the end, no one up to a certain age even remembers who Jimmy Hoffa was.

The path that these three men take that will eventually cross is told through an extended flashback with moments of narration provided by the elder Frank.  This is perhaps intended to remind us of Goodfellas, as is the film's opening shot, which recreates the famous unbroken tracking shot of that film.  However, rather than leading us through a glamorous night club, this time we are exploring the halls of Frank's retirement home.  Whereas in Goodfellas, this shot was used to create a kind of excitement and sense of privilege, here it creates a sense of weariness and sadness.  We then flashback into the story proper, where Frank first meets Russell at a gas station when his meat delivery truck starts to die on him.  Russell helps him identify the problem, and we quickly see how this chance meeting will change the course of his entire life.  Frank knows that Russell is a man of great respect and power, and maybe Frank wants some of that power for himself.

Frank ends up making more connections to "Made Men", and this leads to a meeting with Philadelphia crime boss, Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel).  He forges a friendship with Russell, and this brings him into the world of crime.  He starts by collecting money from various businesses and people, and soon he is asked to kill people and stage sabotage attempts at rival businesses.  All the while, as Frank is rising in the mob, his family feels left behind.  This is the central tragedy behind The Irishman, especially concerning his young daughter, Peggy (Lucy Gallina).  She witnesses her father's brutality first-hand when he forces her to watch him beat a grocery store owner who was rude to her.  After that, we witness many scenes where the girl watches her father with horror, and even intimidation.  Frank's mob friends try to buy her respect with elaborate gifts, but we can sense that Peggy has lost all love for her father, and has no feeling for the men he hangs out with.

If there is a weakness to be found within the screenplay by Steven Zaillian, it is that the strained relationship between Frank and Peggy, while constantly an important element, is kept mostly at a distance.  In later scenes, we see Peggy as an adult, now played by Anna Paquin, and it clearly kills Frank that by this point in their lives, she has essentially written him out entirely, and wants nothing to do with him.  While there is some undeniable power to this plot, especially during a scene late in the film when Frank encounters her at a bank where she works, the role of Peggy is largely underwritten, and could have led to more powerful moments than it does.  The film's main focus is the relationship between Frank and Hoffa, as the two men are brought together and build a bond of trust over the years when Frank begins working under the Union Leader.

This plot between Frank and Hoffa is where The Irishman reaches its true emotional power.  For anyone who knows Sheehan's story, we know where the story is inevitably leading, and when it does, it brings a tremendous amount of power out of De Niro's performance.  We can see how hard it is on what he has to do to Hoffa, which is to essentially betray this man who has become such a valued friend over the years.  De Niro wisely underplays his emotions during these scenes, but it is plainly visible what he is thinking as he intentionally leads Hoffa into an abandoned home that he knows will be their last meeting, all the while Hoffa is completely oblivious.  This is perhaps the strongest moment of the entire film, and leads to the very quiet and reflective final act, where Frank slowly loses the power he has enjoyed for so long.  By the end of the entire ordeal, he is a man who feels like he has lost everything, and now has to sleep with the door to his room open, his eyes constantly searching for any assailant who might come walking in.

That is Frank's inevitable end.  The good times cannot last, and he will be left with nothing but regret.  That is what sets The Irishman apart from a lot of crime films, including some that Scorsese has done in the past.  The final hour or so built around betrayal and eventual quiet isolation are what make the film stand out.  This is an undeniably well-made film through and through, but it is the more reflective moments that give the film its ultimate power.  Despite its extended length, this is a film that deserves to be seen.  Neflix deserves credit for supporting Scorsese's vision here, and seemingly not tampering with it in any way.

0 comments