‘If there’s one person you can’t trust in this life, it’s millionaires’ kids…’
Any Scorsese picture is an event. We are talking about a master of the craft. The man responsible for Goodfellas, The Departed and many, many others. The hype around The Irishman felt particularly overwhelming however. Marty’s comments about the Marvel franchise had the internet abuzz with righteous indignation and the controversies around Scorsese working with Netflix and using deaging technology also threatened to overshadow the work itself. So, let us focus on the film here.
As a statement about the inevitability of aging and the pointlessness of male violence there is no doubting that this is a powerful piece of work. The performances… boy, they are a joy to behold. De Niro, Pesci and Pacino put everything into was is surely their swansong, and there is a pure, unbridled joy to be had by simply watching the three of them in action together. The Rat Pack of Hollywood getting the band back together for one last number. As a work of art, The Irishman is beautiful. Of that, there is no doubt.
As entertainment however… not so much. The plot is unnecessarily labyrinthine, the film is far too long and there are too many sequences that are, quite frankly, a little dull. The very best films of course combine artistic merit with rip roaring entertainment. Scorsese has achieved this dichotomy many times throughout his career but he falls just short here and the result is a film that wouldn’t even break his top five.
If this is to be the final Scorsese picture as the man himself has hinted, then it is a fittingly single-minded work from one of the greatest minds Hollywood has ever produced. But is it a masterpiece? Not for me.