~ The Irishman. A Scorsese film. ~
De Niro. Pacino. Pesci. in a Scorsese period-piece film about the Mafia. Sounds like an entertaining way to spend an evening, right?
Lauded by critics, nominated for many awards, the film is a surprising mess.
It has a wide variety of flaws. At a ridiculous 3+ hrs length, it strains the concentration of even the most dedicated devotee of the actors, the director or the genre. The real-life story of Frank Sheeran, the eponymous Irishman who worked for the mob, is only moderately interesting, and often sounds like Frank is exaggerating his own importance. (as per the film, Sheeran was personally, secretly, involved in driving weapons for the Bay of Pigs assault, for example).
The counterpoint to Sheeran’s perfidy is supposed to be his daughter Peggy, who detests her father’s violence. She has a great (and somewhat creepy) affection for Jimmy Hoffa, head of the Teamster’s Union. (presumably, she is unaware of Hoffa’s own violence). Anna Paquin is excellent in the role, but only gets to speak three words.
The dramatic moment of the film comes with the 1975 disappearance of Hoffa (Pacino, annoyingly over the top at times). The film has been leading up to that for a while, with Sheeran and Hoffa getting closer, so it would be the natural peak of the film. Unfortunately, the film is about Sheeran, and despite the fact that he is simply not that interesting, it follows him for many more years to the bitter end.
Much has been made of the brilliant and novel CGI technology that allowed the characters to age backwards. The actors are in their 70s, you see, and the film covers their lives over the last 40 years. The opposite has been done in several films: cast younger characters and use makeup and CGI to age them. This is first time, apparently, that technology has been used to age in the opposite direction. And let me tell you, it is unimpressive. Here’s De Niro, for example, before and after aging.
Indeed his face is much less lined after the technology has been applied. But it is unlined in the way that facelifts remove wrinkles: unnaturally. The shape of his face remains the same, and he walks and talks like the 70-year-old he is.
This anti-aging thing might be more convincing if these were not such famous and familiar actors. The trouble is, we’ve seen these people in their youth. Remember De Niro running over the rooftops in Godfather 2? He looks nothing like it in the supposed youth of this movie. The film moves back and forth between decades, but frankly, the actors looked about the same in all of them, and I couldn’t really tell one period from another.
Altogether, worth a miss.
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