Review of The Irishman (2019) by Beastj18 — 27 Nov 2019

A slow burn that is meditative and introspective. Scorsese's direction is a voyeuristic look at the full life of a truck driver turned hitman. Schoonmaker does a terrific job of pacing a long story in the most effective way possible, making every scene feel like an important piece of a puzzle in the growth and withering of some very important criminal figures.

I hate to say that the film starts out a little rough with some unconvincing de-aging special effects and some violent action performed by De Niro as a younger man, but his movements are very telling of the actor's real age and does not look realistic, which was overcompensated by some bad foley work to make his actions sound more impactful.

These small early shortcomings are soon forgotten though as the film continues and only gets more engrossing by the moment. The direction is masterful, the technical aspects are predictably great, the story is beat-for-beat brilliant and the performances are all around fantastic, especially (of course) by De Niro, Pacino and Pesci.

Unsurprisingly, one of the best films of the year. One of the greatest directors of all time delivers another knockout.