The legend that is Martin Scorsese has made yet another cinematic masterpiece with The Irishman, a film that had a limited theatrical release on November 1, 2019 and was released on Netflix on November 27th. In this film, the 77-year-old director introduces us to Frank Sheeran, an Irish mob hustler and hitman who gets involved with Russell Bufalino and his Pennsylvania crime family. The movie begins with the song “In the Still of the Night” by The Five Satins as the camera pans to an old Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) in a nursing home. Frank is in a wheelchair and soon begins to tell his story.
The music, combined with a sad De Niro who looks terribly lonely, begins to create the gangster world Scorsese creates throughout the film and foreshadows what is to come as Frank tells his story, but no one is seen around him who is listening. The first thing Frank says is, “When I was young, I thought house painters painted houses” (3:27:48). This line shares a similar nature to the famous line, “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” from arguably Scorsese’s best film Goodfellas. However, Frank does not begin his story by boasting about his decision to become a mobster; instead, Frank starts with a line that portrays his naiveness about what being a “house painter” meant and how at first he didn’t know the meaning because he was a working man. After his first couple of lines, the scene cuts to Frank shooting a man, and the man’s blood ends up splattered all over the wall of the house where he is killed, hence the walls were painted with blood and the house painter was Frank. The Irishman is based off the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, and although Scorsese didn’t think he would ever make another gangster film, it was the book that convinced him he had to go back to the world and bring this story to the big screen.
Scorsese of course picked the best of the best, and thus, it was no surprise the acting in the film was superb. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Scorsese explained how actor Joe Pesci did not want to do the movie at first, but after insisting and explaining to him the story, Pesci finally agreed to play the role of Russell Bufalino. Pesci did a great job playing a mob leader who was calm, collected, calculating, powerful, and ruthless. Although Russell is never seen killing anyone, he is still a man to fear and respect as he holds all the power and every decision must be approved by him. From the beginning, Russell’s powerful status is established when Frank asks for his name and instead of answering with his name, Russell asks Frank where he is from after a pause and an intense look. What is most impressive is that Scorsese revealed that scene was improvised by Pesci which perhaps isn’t too surprising considering his iconic improvised “I’m funny how? Funny, like, I’m a clown? I amuse you?” scene from Goodfellas. Certainly, seeing Pesci and De Niro back in action is the best gift Scorsese could give his fans.
Another star actor who played his role with conviction was Al Pacino who shared many scenes with De Niro as Jimmy Hoffa, an American labor union leader who was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union from 1957 to 1971. In his role, Pacino captures Hoffa’s determined and stubborn demeanor well as it leads his character to be murdered by his closest friend, Frank. Certainly by the end of the film it can be sensed that Hoffa won’t be surviving, and audiences feel Frank’s frustration and heartbreak when Hoffa fails to listen to him and the leaders and give up his union once and for all. However, prior to Hoffa’s fall, Pacino’s character is a charismatic one. This is seen in the courtroom scene where a man charges at him with a gun and shoots him but no bullets fire. After the man is dealt with, Pacino goes on to deliver the line, “you charge with a gun, with a knife you run (2:05:31) which was definitely one of the funnier and lighter moments of the movie because of Pacino’s delivery of the line.
Besides some lighthearted scenes during the first two hours of the movie, most of the film focuses on the sad and tragic nature of leading a mob life. The last hour and 28 minutes of the film spotlight the broken and unremedied relationships between Frank and his daughters. While Frank had started to lose his daughters from the beginning of the film as seen throughout the couple of interactions with his daughter Peggy, the turning point was when he killed Hoffa and failed to admit what he had done. Although Peggy didn’t like most of the men her father befriended, Hoffa was the only friend of her father’s she liked being around because she felt he was a role model. Even if Frank never told Peggy he killed Hoffa, the look she gives her father while listening to the report of the disappearance of Hoffa on TV was enough to say “I know what you did, and I will never forgive you for it.”
Certainly, in The Irishman Scorsese takes us back to gangster life with all the killing and money-making scenes from past mob films, but it’s different this time because the gangster life is glamorized less and the film centers around the somberness much more. Frank justified his decisions by saying he wanted to protect his family and give them the riches he never had, but by the end of the movie, he is completely alone in a nursing home with only a priest he talks to from time to time. Although Frank has so many stories to tell and so much to confess, he has no one around him who wants to listen or to apologize to because all his friends are dead and his family wants nothing to do with him. As such, the gangster life is portrayed as a lonely one in The Irishman and reminds viewers of the need to not lose track of what matters most.