Review of The Irishman (2019) by Moviemitch96 — 28 Nov 2019

IBeing a huge Martin Scorsese fan, especially his films in which Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci star (Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Casino), along with the fact that this would be Scorsese's final time working with both of these legendary actors (Pesci declined to come out of retirement a reported 40 times when offered his role in this film), I was greatly anticipating this film suffice to say! In this film, De Niro plays a retired mobster that reflects back on his past involvement with a crime family (led by Pesci) and how he got involved with the criminal activities and eventual disappearance of political mobster Jimmy Hoffa (a stellar Al Pacino).

And while it's definitely ambitious and features some brilliant performances from its all-star cast as expected, storywise, it simply felt all too familiar to me in several regards, not to say this was entirely bad, as it contained many great homages to previous classic crime/mafia films (Goodfellas, Casino, The Godfather trilogy), the list goes on and on.

However, while the amount of winks and nods was welcomed and fun to see, at times it felt a little excessive to the point of seeming like fan service. As for the actors, De Niro gives his most complex, but also his most sentimental performance to date, as does Pesci.

Their performances really did feel like a culmination of everything great they've ever done in their career, and especially in their past mob movies. Pacino however nearly steals the show as the hot-headed and eccentric Jimmy Hoffa.

As for the rest of the story and other elements, like I said before, several scenes and a few plot points felt all too familiar, but the dialogue and character interaction in most scenes kept things pretty interesting for the most part.

I will also say that the de-aging effects used for De Niro and some of the other actors actually worked surprisingly well and didn't appear too obvious or gimmicky to me at all. However, the last half hour or so when they're all old felt a little too sentimentally forced and corny to me, and this is where I began to feel underwhelmed, even by the time the last scene/shot was shown, which I will admit was a simple yet memorable shot.

Overall, it's crazy long (three and a half hours!!!) and therefore does drag a little in spots throughout, but it serves for the most part as a satisfying, albeit slightly underwhelming end of an era for Scorsese, De Niro, and Pesci and their mob movies together.