The Irishman – 1.5 stars
Awfully slow and occasionally deadly dull. It’s 3.5 hours, 1.5 hours of which is trying to get Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) either to his senses or a meeting.
The length and pace, however, may be the least of the film’s problems. The movie depicts the rise of mob killer and union boss Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) and his relationship with his mob sponsor (Joe Pesci) and Hoffa. The novelty is the technological ability Martin Scorsese uses to make his actors younger, but the effect is only so successful. They can only make them so young. So, you have a 76 year-old man playing a 40 year old man who looks like a 56 year old man who has a six-year-old daughter. Worse, when they are rendered young in the face, they remain old in the body. One scene, where a digitally younger De Niro beats a man, emphasizes the point. It looks like Bad Grandpa is delivering an ass kicking.
But perhaps the worst part of the film is the fact that there is simply no drama, no tension. Every single character is the exact same person he was from beginning to end. In Goodfellas, De Niro and Pesci were a constant force, but the drama came from watching Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco rise and then try to survive. In Casino, the entire film centered around the significant changes to the personalities of De Niro, the bookmaker made casino king in fledgling Vegas, and Pesci, the enforcer who gets too big for his britches and in-over-his-head alone in the desert. The history of those films was compelling, but it did not have to do all of the lifting.
Here, De Niro is the same throughout. Sociopathic, steady, soulless and somnambulant. It does not make for enthralling viewing. Your eyes will move to the IPhone more than once.
It looks good, though. Damn good. I’ll give it that. And there are a few exchanges in Steve Zallian’s (Moneyball, A Civil Action) script that are subtly sharp. But it’s not nearly enough.
filmvetter 
I completely agree with your review. The movie is bad. Surprisingly bad.
You get all the details right. The story is dull and repetitive. I wasn’t two hours into the movie before I started looking at my watch, and I kept looking at my watch every fifteen minutes after that until the ordeal was over.
The characterizations are nonexistent. Frank Sheeran may have been a dim killer in real life, but did Scorsese have to make Sheeran be so dim for the three-and-half hours we spent with him? Last week I was in a movie theater for 210 minutes with the character and today I can’t recall his wife’s face. The only child of his several children who left an impression was the daughter who kept looking at her father, from start to finish, like he was the devil. Always the same look. None of the characters had any life to them.
I can’t understand why so many reviewers are putting this film on a level with Goodfellas or Raging Bull when it really fails to rise to even a Casino. It’s just a dull and lifeless movie.
He had two wives! I think.
Phew. I was thinking maybe the fact I did not see in a theater was the problem.
You’re right. I completely forgot about wife #1. And all I can remember about wife #2 is that she sat in the backseat of the car a lot.
Can you imagine forgetting about Lorraine Bracco’s character in Goodfellas? Or Sharon Stone’s character in Casino?