Martin Scorsese has long been one of my absolute favorite filmmakers. A sense of pure-cinema runs through Scorsese’s veins and it’s a treat every single time you sit down to see a new film from this maestro.
Even when playing in a cinematic milieu that he’s dominated for 40 years he finds new ways to convey similar themes while expanding on everything that’s come before.
The Irishman Review
Steven Zaillian is an absurdly talented writer. It’s mind-boggling and I’m in complete awe of his contributions to the craft of screenwriting.
The entire production of The Irishman felt literate and compelling because these creative captains have class and smarts to spare.
At three and a half hours, while I mildly feel that it all would’ve worked better as a miniseries, there’s a sense of both the epic and the intimate that the sprawling narrative demonstrates.
Death hangs over this entire motion picture like the Grim Reaper itself. I loved the creative decision to freeze frame on nearly all of the characters and put an on-screen text with how many bullets were fired into their head or face at the time of their death.
Joe Pesci did a master’s job of underplaying, and hit unexpected notes of cinematic nuance. It’s an amazing performance that’s so quiet and internal that over repeated viewings.
“I thought this was engrossing and entertaining, intelligently written, and frequently very funny”
I’m feeling that even more will be unearthed from the way he just looked at the camera. Speaking of on-screen “looks,” Robert De Niro dropped some all-time great face-bombs in this movie.
Harvey Keitel has a literal cup-of-coffee role and his couple of scenes are so good it makes you wish he was in more of the film, and of course, it’s always a blast to see Al Pacino do “Screaming Mad Al.”
Ray Romano and Stephen Graham are big-time standouts in an otherwise deep cast. And YES – that was Welker White (Lois, the babysitter) from Goodfellas as Josephine Hoffa!
And while the subject matter required a more patient visual style my chief complaint is with how cheap the entire thing appeared. It truly looked like a video presentation at times with no filmic-texture. It didn’t have that velvety-celluloid-sheen that Scorsese has become known for.
The CGI “youthification process”, for the most part, was seamless and rather extraordinary.
However, there is one REALLY BAD scene where it looks like De Niro and Pesci are wearing bizarre CGI face-masks. But in general, all of the “groundbreaking” technical stuff looked strong.
It was apparently super expensive and I’m assuming that a majority of the reported $160 million budget went to that aspect of the filmmaking process. The rest of the movie looked surprisingly done-on-a-budget.
The final shot is phenomenal. It’s exactly as it should be! Crushingly sad and expressing tremendous regret and sense of pathetic self-worth.
The Irishman review by Nick Clement
Summary
I thought this was engrossing and entertaining, intelligently written, and frequently very funny. One to watch, The Irishman currently streaming on Netflix
