Release Year: 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese*
Runtime: 229 minutes
Actor-director duos are one of my favorite aspects of film. The chemistry within duos like Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson or Spielberg and Tom Hanks, in addition to reunions like Refn/Chazelle and Ryan Gosling, Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt… it just makes the film more exciting in my opinion and for whatever reason gets me more absorbed despite this meta-cinematic connection. One of my favorites, however, has to be the duo of Scorsese and Robert DeNiro. From Taxi Driver to Raging Bull to Goodfellas and many more, there is just something about this team-up that adds believability and an inexplicable unity to the films they’ve done together. The themes (that have become motifs) of gangsters and ambitious protagonists also seem to be members of this team-up, and the masterpiece that is The Irishman more than expands on them.
The film proves even in its opening that it is nothing short of epic: the audience is in for a gripping story that will earn their attention viscerally. From Frank Sheeran’s venerable recall, we learn about his story with perspective that becomes almost metaphysical, and definitely extremely dramatic. The worst thing a fact-based drama can do is look unbelievable, but Scorsese quickly owns every bit of realism in this non-fiction narrative so the viewer is aware they are watching history unfold, even if it’s as entertaining as a plausible story. Frank’s worldview and status as a mobster who is clearly on a downward spiral are engrained in the viewer by the oldest advice in cinema,** and that is show, don’t tell. By the time Joe Pesci’s character appears onscreen in his youngest form, the atmosphere of the film is so tensely captivating that the storytelling devices are hardly devices anymore, and are rather components, attributes, or effects.
DeNiro’s performance is unsurprisingly spectacular. It’s the mark of a great actor when a role like this is his forte even at his age, but he certainly nails Sheeran’s storytelling dialogue in a manner markedly different from his past work. Pesci gives a performance by which I was genuinely blown away, however, and not by his energy this time! The fact he could play it so subtle this time around, out of retirement no less, was excellent and I felt as impressed with his decision to finally take the role as I was with watching him in it. Pacino shone with a vibrance I hadn’t seen from him since Heat, and it continually felt like candid history was the driving force of his role as Jimmy Hoffa. Not one character felt out of place, and while my harshest gripe with the film does lie with the de-aging, this aspect was done unexpectedly well and it begins to feel like a flashback cinematography choice in later scenes. It really is incredible 95% of the time, and is the appropriate use of CGI I have been hoping to see done right for a while now.
As I mentioned, the story unfolds very realistically while still being entertaining. Most people might disagree with me, but I did not find the film to be overlong at all: I think it was much more hard-hitting after spending so much excruciatingly raw time with these figures, and the time flew welcomely by for the whole three-and-a-half hours. It was brilliantly paced and easy enough to follow without sugarcoating the facts. The best part of this film’s epic scale, however, was the impressively vast emotional range. I do not tend to watch Scorsese films to be “moved.” There may be some necessarily dissected pathos in Taxi Driver or The Departed, but it isn’t as inherently “emotional,” as, say, Silence. With this film, I was shocked at how my absorption in these gangsters’ actions actually morphed into genuine empathy, and eventually melancholy sympathy. In ways I will not disclose in order to preserve this film’s plot, I was deeply saddened at multiple points in this film as Scorsese did what he’s done best for half a century: turned these larger-than-life figures and archetypes into real people. You don’t forget Sheeran’s identity or his actions, nor do you excuse them, but his humanity is established so beautifully through the whole runtime, and with it a sense of complex understanding the viewer can hopefully apply to life.
The balance of grit and insight is mastered as well as the cinematography, which can immerse the viewer if nothing else does, and with ease. Netflix seems to be capable of distributing the highest quality of films now. I first thought The Irishman was a gimmick: Netflix’s attempt to strike a “cool” chord with a generation that once was really excited about a director who is pretty much done. What I realized after its acclaim, but more importantly my viewing of the film, is that it is anything but a gimmick and the inaccessibility was the risk, not the attempted payoff. The revitalization of a Scorsese gangster epic starring actors arguably past their prime was what many studios likely thought unmarketable, a dead end. Realizing Netflix was the one willing to see the excellence in such a feature not only makes sense but also makes this film more magnetic in its sense of rarity (to this generation). We may never get another film like The Irishman again, but instead of wondering “what if…” we got a vital and vibrant spectacle that defines but also redefines the meaning of going out with a bang. This is my favorite film of 2019.
*One of my favorite directors
**maybe
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