The Irishman - Martin Scorsese

I read the book “I Heard You Paint Houses” a month prior to the Irishman's release. I liked the book more, but that is a given. The Irishman is not a film for the faint of heart, the impatient, the viewers who can’t always pay attention and have a hard time not checking snap chat during the low points in the movie. This film demands your entire attention. It is not an action movie, it is not John Wick, it’s not a Tarantino movie with an inordinate amount of gore. What it is, is a long crime epic about a man who lived a regretful life and had to kill one of his best friends. Make no mistake, this is a tragedy. I would liken Irishman to The Godfather in terms of the scale and what it means for the director. This is Scorsese’s Godfather, it’s his epic where all his skills are on display, the cray thing is, he’s not done! I think a lot of directors would make a film like this as there closing piece, the last thing they make. Tarantino has been very clear that he is only making 10 films total and he’s done. Martin is starting filming on his next movie in March! This is a three-and-a-half-hour film about a man rising in a New York crime family and being forced to kill his best friend and mentor, Jimmy Hoffa. It’s also not about that, it is also about a man living the mob life and then ending that life in a sad way. The film feels like goodfellas aged 30 years, it still has this underlying idea of excess and indulgence, but it is matched with these themes of dark and gritty, lying and undermining that Goodfellas more or less glossed over, at least in comparison to Irishman. There is one story that was omitted in The Irishman which I think was a mistake. In the book there is this chapter that tells a story of a singular night when Sheeran is coursed into fighting a Kangaroo in a bar for betting and entertainment purposes, it is largely removed from the overall narrative with one exception, it foreshadows the entire journey Frank takes. You see the story goes like this: Three rounds with a kangaroo. Frank goes in the first time, friends to his back, Roo to his front. He gets hit in the back of the head, round ends. Round two is a repeat. At this point he thinks one of his friends is trying to make him lose. He comments that if one of his friends hits him in the back he’s going to turn around and clobber him. Round three is a repeat. His friends were not trying to influence the game, the kangaroo was using his tail to swing around and hit Sheeran from behind. The way that specific story is told is masterful but the way it ties into the overall narrative is even better. An underlying theme here is not understanding or knowing all the information. In the mob, the concealment is purposeful whereas the Kangaroo is not, but the idea is very much the same, you are going to get knocked on your ass if you can’t find out where the next hit is coming from. Which is exactly what happens to Hoffa, he doesn’t understand and he gets whacked. Speaking about Hoffa, the Irishman paints a much weaker picture between Sheeran and Hoffa, not that it is bad or comes out of nowhere, it doesn’t. But the book spends most of its time speaking about the relationship between Hoffa and Sheeran while the film only spends about half its runtime focusing on the relationship. But that is not really a problem, because the book is very much about Hoffa and Sheeran, the film is not. The film is about The Irishman, shocker, right? We focus more on Frank as a person and even a little on his relationship with his daughter, although that relationship is summed up in something like six words. I would argue that the film is really about Frank and Russel. In the book there is ample time both the build the Hoffa relationship as well as set up Russel as Franks only worthwhile father figure, a legitimate mentor. However, in the film, even with the 3.5 hour run time there is not enough time to correctly do both so we have to compromise for a shorter Hoffa relationship so we can understand the reason Frank eventually kills him. This all sounds like I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, I am, I think its fantastic, but I like the book more. There is one thing that the book does poorly that The Irishman excels at. The ending was bleak in the book, but it is heart wrenching in the film. This story ends with Frank and his colleagues in jail for the majority of their later lives. Frank ends up in a Nursing home, with a family who does not associate with him and a lifetime of friends buried underground. It ends with Frank alone in a room waiting for death, because he doesn’t have a ton to live for at this point in his life. That’s incredibly bleak but it feels right. For all the time we spend with Sheeran, we like him, but we don’t love him, we respect him, but we don’t fear him, and we always know at some point or another the lifestyle he lives will come to an end. We watch Ferris Buellers day off and we legitimately like Ferris, we like Bruce Wayne and we even like Lester in American beauty (even though we probably shouldn’t). We like Frank, sort of, we are interested, we don’t love him as a character or a person, but we have no problem following him on his journey. This is intentional, we don’t need to love him as a character, the only reason we would need to love him is if his life is in danger or we don’t know the outcome, but the first part of the film shows Frank as an old man with Russel. We know they are around for a while after the most important part of this film happens. We don’t need to love him because whether we love him or hate him, the ending hits just as hard. It’s a fantastic movie, it really is Scorsese’s Godfather. I can’t find anything else to say about it without telling you to go watch it yourself, or to ask your thoughts on it.