The Irishman

You know you're in a Martin Scorsese film from the outset--a long tracking shot, set to the tune of a pop song ("In The Still Of The Night"). It's a shot through a nursing home, resting on Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), sitting in a wheelchair, ready to tell us his story.

And what a story. Sheeran was like the Zelig of post-war organized crime, as The Irishman features many familiar names from the underworld, from Crazy Joey Gallo to Fat Tony Salerno. Sheeran knew them all, though he was not nearly as colorful as they were. In fact, though The Irishman is certainly one of the best films of the year, and one of Scorsese's best, it is missing a heart.

Sheeran was an Irish truck driver for a meat packing plant. He fought in the war, and that theme is returned to several times, as he remarks that one simply followed orders (we see him shooting prisoners who had just dug their own graves, letting us know he is inured to committing murder). In order to score points with a local mobster, he steals steaks, which gets him an introduction to Russell Buffalino (Joe Pesci), who runs Northeastern Pennsylvania. Sheeran does more and more favors, eventually performing hits, which is referred to, in mob parlance, as "painting houses." Eventually he will get introduced to Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), with who he will form a close friendship, but his loyalty between him and Buffalino will be tested.

Whether any of The Irishman is true is subject to debate. The film is based on a book called I Hear You Paint Houses, in which Sheeran confesses to some unsolved murders, including Gallo's and Hoffa's. However there are experts who doubt Sheeran. But if we take The Irishman at face value, it's quite a tale. We just are never given much insight into Sheeran's motives.

Instead, De Niro, who is miscast, plays a character who is a cypher, surrounded by an orbit of much more interesting characters. We start with Pacino as Hoffa. He arrives about a third of the way into the movie, and when he does it becomes all about him, like a Hoffa biography. Pacino gives one of his typical later year performances (I always have a hard time squaring this Pacino with the one who gave such an understated performance as Michael Corleone in The Godfather), with arms waving and voice rising. Watching Pacino now is like going to see Mick Jagger in concert--you expect strutting. Anyway, we learn a lot about Hoffa, from how he didn't like watermelon, but loved the chili dogs from Lum's.

The script weaves its way through post-war America. We learn that Kennedy was elected with help from the mob (graveyard names vote in Illinois), as Kennedy's old man had promised he'd kick Castro out of Cuba so they could get their casinos back. But the Bay of Pigs was a disaster, and Hoffa was dogged by Bobby Kennedy. The film does not go so far as to say that the mob was implicit in JFK's assassination, but it isn't ruled out.

And then Hoffa, after going to jail, turns his back on the mob. He battles with Tony Provenzano (Stephen Graham), and in a bid for re-election to the union job he says he will call in loans given to the Mafia (we learn that Las Vegas was basically built by loans from the Teamsters). Sheeran, who is a confidant of both Hoffa and Buffalino, tries to warn his friend, but the writing is on the wall (as is the blood).

The Irishman is almost three-and-a-half hours long, but never boring, and frequently engaging. It has the same feel as Goodfellas, with comic interludes. There is an amusing discussion of how one can buy a fish without knowing what kind it is, or Hoffa's bemusement that so many Italian guys are named Tony. De Niro tells us about a spot in the Schuylkill River where so many guns have been tossed that a diver could bring up enough arms for a small country. But the impact of the film doesn't come until late, when Sheeran, estranged from a daughter (Anna Paquin) and left alone in a nursing home with his guilt, tries to reconcile his deeds with a priest. Is he remorseful? We're not really sure.

Much has been made of the de-aging special effects, and I didn't find them so much a distraction as ineffective. De Niro is still overweight and short of breath. He also doesn't look the least bit Irish (Sheeran was sandy-haired and six-five). The movie belongs to Pacino, but quietly stealing every scene he is in is Pesci, coming out of retirement. Pesci plays against his usual type, as Buffalino was quiet and dignified. When De Niro gets in trouble with another gangster (Harvey Keitel) he sits quietly in a restaurant booth, as Keitel tells De Niro what a friend he has in Pesci. "I know,"  De Niro says. "No, you don't know," Keitel responds, implying that Pesci has just saved his life.

Like Goodfellas, The Irishman is big and bold and sprawling, with several locations. The film is told from Sheeran's confession, but there is also a framing device of a drive from Philadelphia to Detroit, which we eventually learn is the trip that spells Hoffa's doom. Scorsese, and his writer Steve Zaillian, luxuriates in the colorful rogue's gallery, including Gallo, and others such as Sally Bugs, Whispers (there are two), Jimmy the Weasel, and others.

So The Irishman is a spectacular entertainment, but I wish I could have learned more about what made Sheeran trick. I talked with a friend who read the book, and she told me Sheeran was the runt of a large family, whose father made him box with him to make him a man. The film was already long, but perhaps some cuts could have been made to make Sheeran more alive to us.