I know this take is super late but whatever I'm in class and this was on my mind:
I understand that people like this movie a lot, but I don't see it. I have seen it on more than one occasion so I could try and understand why people like this movie. I have talked to people who have seen it. I've watched video essays on it. Despite all that, I don't understand why the movie reached such acclaim.
Let me start by listing the things I like about this movie:
Al Pacino's performance as Jimmy Hoffa is damn good, most likely being the best performance in the movie. He's a fantastic actor, so this comes as no real surprise. I wouldn't say anything extreme like it was better than his role as Michael Corleone, but it was a strong depiction of Hoffa. His personality, while grounded in the blue collar work ethic and his hard-fought virtues, is damn-near larger than life. Every scene he's in, he commands your attention, with his brazen, confrontational attitudes, to his somewhat humorous manner.
Joe Pesci, while absent in some long stretches of the movie, gives a good performance of Russell Bufalino. This was a noticeable departure from the more fiery roles we come to expect from Pesci (like Goodfellas and Casino) but he nonetheless is one of the best parts of the movie. There's an empathetic, caring nature of his character that contrasts nicely with the more conniving, apathetic business side of him.
The story is legitimately interesting. I understand this mostly lies in the real-life mythos of the disappearance of Hoffa, but it's impossible not to gawk at the sheer size of the story. Constant power struggles between various mobsters? Union campaigns? Fighting for control of the Teamsters? There's nothing about the story that is not pure intrigue.
Now, for the things I dislike about the movie:
FRANK SHEERAN
Frank Sheeran is a character with a complete lack of depth and personality. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here, but could they have made the protagonist any more unbearably boring? I don't even fault De Niro too much for this because he does the best with what he's given. Unfortunately, what he was given was a completely blank slate, and Scorsese said "Be like this." Sheeran is a "witness character," meaning that he watches more powerful and interesting people around him do a bunch of important and powerful shit before he gets his one moment to do something that defines the story. He has few, if any, discernible character traits, except that he was violent one time to a shopkeeper and he is friends with Jimmy Hoffa. We're *supposed* to believe that this character is important and wields a level of influence and power, both in the mob, and in the Teamsters, yet, somehow, he is constantly powerless to affect any change in the story. On top of this, he has no character arc. He starts killing people, and he hurts a shopkeeper one time. At some point down the line, he kills his friend, and that makes him sad.
It takes him 3 hours and 47 minutes of film time to realize that killing is wrong? Oh my god, what genius!
I understand that what I just said was reductive, but I'm trying to illustrate the lack of thought given to an arc that was placed there rather intentionally. He's a hitman, a union leader, and the confidant of Jimmy Hoffa who struggles in his parental role as he resorts to violence too quick. There is a rich arc there that should be told, but this has to be balanced with him not doing anything so the main story can play out.
My main point about Frank is that the movie doesn't know whether or not to make him important or completely passive. Let's be clear: passivity has a place in storytelling. One of the best examples I can think of is Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, where him being a witness makes more sense and serves more of a purpose. I'm not saying it's impossible for a passive witness to be given an arc, but that's a challenge which requires a deft hand that the writers did not have when writing the script, as the film constantly flops between "Oh he's important and a character you should focus on!" and "lol nvm not really."
CHARACTERIZATION
Building off the last point, the characterization has serious issues that no one seems to address when talking about this movie. We are constantly given information about characters via cutaways, montages, or people just fucking telling us. Let's keep talking about Frank, since we were just talking about him. We are told Frank is a hitman for the mob when we see a montage of Frank throwing guns in a river while his older self narrates over it, and then we are shown that he has grown to be more violent in regular dealings when he beats up the shopkeeper. Aside from the fact this is very sudden and takes place over the course of 2 minutes, why did this change have to happen if we were just going to be told it anyway? Why not introduce him as a hitman struggling with his growing violent tendencies? Also, and much more egregious, why the hell is this the only real incident of his violent behavior affecting him outside of work? That's clearly what the scene is trying to portray, but it only happens once. If his character is changing, then it isn't just a one-time thing. Patterns form, with the violence potentially growing, as his character steeps deeper and deeper away from acting how he used to. Eventually, with his murder of Hoffa, he comes to realize how much he's changed as a person. Not only does that sound more intriguing, it's also more realistic.
This affects more than just Frank though. What about Russ, who was one of the better parts of the movie? Well, we see him dine with Frank a few times in the beginning, and we are literally told that Russ saved his life and that he is a great friend to Frank. Obviously, this is meant to communicate that he considers Frank a friend. Unfortunately, this suffers from the same mistake as last time. Russ is straight up absent for a huge part of the middle of the movie, where he all but disappears. How are we supposed to believe that he's a great friend if we've just seen them eat and bowl twice and we're just told it once? That doesn't make the audience believe anything.
The story is severely limited by the way in which characters are built, as it weakens the impact that arcs can have, and it puts a severe damper on potential character moments. Instead of letting us see how a character is, we have to constantly be artificially told how things are, or how this character is, when a better alternative would be to show us naturally.
THE TONE
This movie is pretentious as hell for a story that has such a weak protagonist and characterization. Everything about this movie screams "TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!" as if it was a fucking Christopher Nolan movie. The muted colors, the ham-fisted symbol of the daughter, the loaded cast of people who do absolutely nothing, and the hilariously dumb stills of characters with their faces and their deaths.
I understand that they aren't 1-to-1 but tell me that those still shots of the faces with their fates isn't as ridiculous as this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOpapeX6Vzs
Also, how quick was the whole idea of "painting houses" dropped? As soon as he stopped painting houses in the movie. I mean, he does this whole pretentious, "Before the mob I thought when you said you paint houses, it meant you paint houses" speech. Then, when they get on the road, they do a laughably bad edit of the car and these 3 black frames coming in and out saying "I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES."
This movie is horribly pretentious for the story it tells. Hell, it's pretentious for the story it's trying to tell too. At its best, while it is a story about the Teamsters and the mafia, the story of a violent father, and the story of the greatest Union leader the US has ever seen, it's also not a super complex analysis of the way of the world or human nature. I mean damn, the Godfather is much more thorough in its dissection of capitalism, family, and masculinity, and if it had some of the shit that was in this movie, it would be too much.
ANTI-AGING
This isn't as serious a criticism of the movie but I think it's important to mention: the technology is fucking stupid.
First off, while I acknowledge how impressive the technology is, it's extremely limited in what it can do. Sure, these characters look SLIGHTLY younger. They also still move like old people because old people are the actors getting re-aged. Yes, if they sat down in front of me and stood still, I would be convinced, but no, I watched a geriatric De Niro beat up a shopkeeper with slightly smoother skin. It wasn't convincing.
Second, how much age does it really take off? De Niro does not look that young in the beginning of the movie, like he's pushing 55-60. That's an achievement, but it's not super effective to the audience. Plus, any age after that still makes him look really damn old. I have to be honest, I thought De Niro looked the same across however many years it was supposed to be. It didn't impact my viewing experience tremendously, but it was weird.
This brings me to my main point: why the fuck wouldn't you hire younger actors? Sure, I understand that these people are all legends and they can act and all that, but this younger generation has some great actors too. Is it in way possible for the mantle to be passed? Mob movies are among some of the greatest movies ever made. Do we just let the flame die out because there will be no more actors from the original movies? What a ridiculous notion. I want to see new movies, new art being made. This movie feels like it's supposed to be a farewell, but art is supposed to evolve. You don't just close it up[ and say "We're done, no more." You keep the style going until it's outta gas. Using old actors will probably kill off this genre quicker than the styles being outdated.
CONCLUSION (tl;dr)
This movie has serious flaws that diminish some of the potential good that is inside this movie.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/fsmet1/the_irishman_is_a_bad_movie/
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