The Irishman (2019)

The personal story of a so-called Mafia assassin, as told by the actual person to the author of the source book. 

Of big proportions, with multiple narrative threads intersected at different points in time, The Irishman is a mammoth of a movie that only Scorsese could control. It presents the story of a real person - as told in the winter of his life - just as such, without showing any resistance or doubts about its veridicity. In reality, there are doubts due to the content being a bit sensational, especially around the details about the links with Jimmy Hoffa and his disappearance. 

A great effort and a very interesting story that brings together big names, some even returned after retiring from acting (Joe Pesci) or some without even one line of dialogue (Harvey Keitel). This is the third time that the two "giants" - Robert De Niro and Al Pacino - meet in the same scenes (the first time they were in the same film, in The Godfather, they did not actually share scenes at all, Heat is a recognised masterpiece and Righteous Kill did not rise to expectations), this time successfully and showcasing a beautiful friendship that really makes sense. 

Soaked in a lot of history and facts that can actually be verified, the film presents the Italian-mafia character as perceived and understood by Scorsese and also as he demonstrated it in other of his great successes. Less noisy (perhaps due to the slightly more historical character), less dramatic, much more subtle, the film suffers from the lack of an interesting main character. Everything is interesting around it, and all the other very colourful and well-written characters seem to have a natural respect as if born out of merit, but it never becomes obvious to the viewer why that is. And Scorsese, I think, was just as perplexed as he actually attempted to get his characters to explain in their own words the effect of this man as an irrefutable fact that everyone is aware of. 

Joe Pesci is wonderful, strong and fragile at the same time, Al Pacino is as bombastic as usual and very believable, and Robert De Niro worked hard to seem so boring, docile, humble and violent. 

The 3 hours are perfectly excusable. 

Screenplay: Steven Zaillian, Charles Brandt (book) 

Directed by: Martin Scorsese 

Featuring: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Carnavale, Ana Paquin