‘The Irishman’ struggles under the weight of its runtime
Martin Scorsese has been in the news a lot lately, and not necessarily because of his Netflix film The Irishman. No matter where you fall on the Marty vs. Marvel debate, you have to admit that Scorsese is one of the most legendary filmmakers living today. He knows how to tell an engaging story using all the elements of film and how to give us memorable moments from his charismatic criminal characters. Couple that skill with one of the best casts you could imagine, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and even Joe Pesci and The Irishman has to be one of the best films of the year, right? Well, it’s complicated.
The film tells the story of Frank Sheeran (De Niro) and Irish mob enforcer who is torn between his alliance with long-time friend and mob boss Russ Bufalino (Pesci) and infamous union boss Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). The tension builds as we see the two sides starting to go to war with each other and Frank being pushed to make his true allegiance known by taking out one boss or the other.
Let me start by saying that The Irishman was one of my most anticipated films of the year. Scorsese is a national treasure and I was thrilled to see Pesci back in action. The three-and-a-half-hour runtime didn’t scare me. I have no problem with languid character examinations and dialogue-free moments where the actors can shine without saying anything at all. I loved The Wolf of Wall Street, which sits at three hours, The Departed, which clocks in at over two-and-a-half, and his masterpiece Goodfellas, which runs just under two-and-a-half hours. Those movies were long, but you never felt the extended runtime because they kept you glued to the screen with a manic, frenetic pace that made the minutes fly by. I wish I could say the same for The Irishman.
De Niro is a legend and he is capable of showing us a huge range of emotions and internal struggle while sitting silently and doing nothing at all, but after what felt like an infinite number of long takes of him sitting quietly making that same classic De Niro face, it stopped feeling like he was making character choices and more like he was waiting for Scorsese to yell cut. Thankfully, Pacino and Pesci are there to wake you back up again, but man, do you feel every single one of those 209 minutes!
It’s most notable in the scenes with female characters, or lack thereof. I’m not trying to be the woke police here, but where are the women in this story? We get a couple minutes about Sheeran and Bufalino’s wives, a sentence of two from Jo Hoffa and an acknowledgement that Sheeran has daughters, but the lack of any real female characters was palpable here. I was excited to see Anna Paquin appear as Sheeran’s grown daughter, Peggy, but you could count her lines on one hand, which just makes me wonder why they’d go through the trouble of casting a well-known actress (and Oscar winner) like her in the first place. It’s possible that she had some additional dialogue, but that it was cut—but with such a long runtime, it would be just plain wrong to cut the only scenes with any female character development. Scorsese’s movies are always very male-focused, usually because of the crime boss subject matter, but there really wasn’t room in this film for a woman to do more than smoke and look on disapprovingly from the kitchen?
Pacino is doing Pacino, which is a little difficult when that type of performance has been parodied a million times—including by Pacino himself, but it suits the character in this situation. Soon enough, you’re able to leave that nagging “hoo-ah” behind and get onboard with him as Hoffa.
The absolute highlight of the film is Pesci, who made slogging through the slower moments worthwhile. We remember him from his iconic role in Goodfellas, hot-headed and prone to violent outbursts, but here we get him subdued and quieter. Bufalino is an aging gangster who doesn’t have to get loud or threaten people to show that he’s powerful. In fact, it’s his moments of kindness and friendship toward Sheeran that make the Hoffa situation more complicated and interesting.
It’s worth noting that this is a Netflix feature and not a traditional release for a few reasons. First, Netflix has a reputation of getting on board with any idea in a throw-shit-to-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks mentality. Second, Scorsese was a big get for the streamer and immediately brought major credibility with him, along with iconic actors. When you look at the runtime and the looser style to The Irishman, it’s clear that nobody at Netflix was going to tell him he couldn’t make a three-and-a-half-hour movie in the way that perhaps a big studio worried about exhibition might. A guy like Scorsese can do whatever he wants on Netflix, and it shows here. Which begs the question: How many times can you make this movie? I can’t help but feel like we’ve seen the same gangster picture from Scorsese for decades with gradually diminishing returns. I fully support being an auteur and having a style, but the story itself feels like we’ve seen it a dozen times—and I love Scorsese, so it kills me to say this!
The Irishman is a situation where all the elements are there: genius auteur director with the freedom to make the exact film he wants, stellar cast of legends, amazing cinematography and music, and all beamed directly to your house via Netflix, but for some reason, those pieces just don’t seem to add up for me.
