It’s been five years sinceThe Irishmanwas released, and for a film so focused on mortality and death, it ironically has aged very well. We’ve had stories by bothMartin Scorseseand others that have deconstructed mob life, but this one is made by a man nearing the end ofhis very long career, and everything deliberately feels slower and far more melancholy.
With his best performance in years as Frank Sheeran,Robert De Niromakes a life of crime feel like just another day on the job, yet the history he becomes a part of feels more relevant as I start to grow older. This all concludes in a truly heartbreaking final act,one that ends a triple collaboration that has lasted for three decadesand proves to be a final condemnation of the criminal lifestyle.
‘The Irishman’ Makes Mob Life Feel Like Any Other Normal Job
When I first watchedThe Irishman, I’d just started exploring Scorsese and his work while in college, and I knew it was a return to the gangster genre he had been known for, but I did not anticipate how different it would feel. There is no enjoyment of the luxuries or thrill of the risks likeGoodfellasorCasinowould provide. Instead,we just get a person who views murder as another day on the job, and the violence is presented in the most open format. Rather than ingrotesque bloodshedlike either of its spiritual predecessors, nearly all violent scenes in the film, including the entire half hour covering the events of Hoffa’s murder, feature no music or score of any kind. Add the judging stare that Peggy (Anna Paquin) gives to her father every time he comes back home, and you really get the sense that Frank has an empty life, not a fulfilling one.
By extension,The Irishmanapplies this logic to Frank himself as a protagonist, who is more pitiful than what you might expect from a hitman. Although his own daughters later call him out as adults,one thing I noticed upon rewatch is just how uncomfortable they always feel around him, which Frank only barely notices. Even at the end of his life, we havea morally repulsive protagonistwho feels very little sympathy for the damage he caused while serving under Russell Buffalino (Joe Pesci), and his deep commitment to mob life prevents him from making amends by publicly telling his story. Instead, he only shares events with someone in his nursing home, treating a life of crime more like a war story than a regretful phase of his life.
‘The Irishman’ Literally Hits Too Close to Home
WhileGoodfellaslargely takes place in Brooklyn andCasinois set in Vegas,The Irishmanremains focused mainly upon Philadelphia around that same time period, where the mobheld power over the unionsthat largely dominated the Rust Belt. I’ve been an upstate New Yorker from birth, but the film actually feels much closer to home now than it did at first. My parents lived in the area when they were first married, around the same time Frank was released from prison, and my two closest friends still reside there.
The Martin Scorsese Crime Drama That “Couldn’t Have Come at a Better Time” for Sharon Stone
Stone and Scorsese’s collaboration would earn the actress an Oscar nomination.
Now that I’m a bit older,I’ve also got a better understanding of the labor union subplot, which really drives home just how powerful the mob actually was during that era. Whether or not the story about Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) wastotally accurate to historyhonestly feels beyond the point here, since the mere fact that it could be real is still a very sobering thought by itself. Here, the mob feels truly national in scale, but that also makes its decline hit that much harder.
‘The Irishman’ Is the Perfect Swan Song for Scorsese
Given that Scorsese is perhaps best known for his work in the gangster genre, I’ve always consideredThe Irishmanto be the end of a spiritual trilogy that picked up from whereGoodfellasandCasinostarted, hence the many comparisons. Granted, the director isclearly not slowing down,but it marks one last ride between Scorsese, De Niro, and Pesci in the mob genrethat made them all famous. The film is very conscious of that fact, perhaps most notably when a dying Russell is wheeled away to the church and hospital. Not only is that the final time Frank sees him, but it’s also the last time viewers might see Pesci too, given that the actor is now retired and remains highly reclusive.
With its focus on mortality and death, the last act ofThe Irishmanfeels like not only a fitting conclusion to a loose trilogy of films, but one final indictment of the mob itself. What this film clearly conveys, in a way few other mobster movies do,is how little all the power plays and political games matter in the grand scheme of history, something Frank only realizes near the end. Although Robert De Niro shines throughout the entire movie, his last thirty minutes alone make thisone of his best performancesin the past thirty years, and the fact that he was never nominated for an Oscar alongside Pacino and Pesci still feels to me like highway robbery. Regardless, the film is still the perfect story of moral decay, one whose haunting ending is bound to stick with me for many years.
The Irishmanis available for streaming on Netflix in the US.
The Irishman
