Review of The Irishman (2019) by Mnanda — 03 Nov 2019

Just saw this last night on the big screen and the experience was inherently contradictory. I didn't care one whit about anyone on screen or anything that was happening... yet somehow, despite the length, I remained engaged.

I'm hard pressed to think of a film with so much talent, made with such a high level of craft and artistry, made about people I had no investment in. It was odd. The only reason I cared at all wasn't b/c I had a relationship with the characters, but with the actors, the filmmaker and the genre.

The film is intrinsically bound to its pedigree and that makes it interesting to anyone who has watched these careers unfold over lifetimes... But it doesn't make it inherently a good movie.