Rating (2.5 out of 5)
Summary: I have struggled with how to describe this movie and why it didn’t resonate with me. Two reasons: 1) I feel like I have seen this movie before from Martin Scorsese. He might complain about Marvel, but are his movies really different? He even uses the same actors. 2) After 3 1/2 hours, I didn’t feel anything. He failed to connect me to any of the characters and therefore when it ended, nothing.
The acting performances are good, but nothing outstanding about them. I do enjoy watching how someone joins the mob and how a mob operates. To plod through the entire history made the film too long and slow.
Plot: Gangster, Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) joins the mob and becomes friends with Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). Jimmy puts the mob in an awkward spot, and Frank deals with the ramifications.
Detail: “The Irishman” builds so slowly. If this movie had been done by a college student, teachers would have ripped the movie to shreds. For example, we introduce the daughter Penny, and she is off and on a focal point of the movie. I am sure this was to make Frank appear vulnerable and human when Penny refuses to talk to him in the later years. But when it comes down to it, she was excess baggage and if she had found her way to the cutting room floor, it would have been a shorter and more concise film.
This begs the question: Are the people rating the “Irishman” highly purely as a film or because it is Scorsese is the director with his typical crew of actors? I believe even critics want to conform to the norm, and therefore to say Scorsese directed something less than terrific is heresy. I dare say if you watch this movie and unafraid as I am ( because let’s face it, only two people will read this blog, and one is Scott) that this is an average film.
I never really care for Frank. In other films like “Goodfellas” or “Casino”, I connected with the characters even though they were thugs. I wanted to see them succeed. Frank was a thug and there wasn’t much to like. I just didn’t care.
The most interesting aspect was understanding how the mob fit into the world of politics in the 60s. But at times this can take away from the character building. I would prefer a documentary instead of this 3 1/2 hour marathon.