'The Irishman': Martin Scorsese reunites the mob for an elegiac movie marvel (review)

Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) in 'The Irishman.' (Netflix)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- There are no colorful mobsters, vibrant lights or romance. No late-night cruises into the noirish night. No girl groups – not the Ronettes or anyone else for that matter – singing songs that recall another time.

The opening shot of “The Irishman” is a methodical walk into an antiseptic nursing home. The lighting is harsh, the feeling cold and the mood is austere. The hues are muted and life, like the colors of the film, appear to have been sucked out of the scene.

“The Irishman” opens like no other Martin Scorsese film. This isn’t “Casino” or “Good Fellas” of “Mean Streets. And yet it will no doubt be compared to those films because it stars Robert De Niro and features Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, whose careers are intertwined with the director’s iconic take on The Mob Life.

Based on Charles Brandt’s non-fiction book, “I Heard You Paint Houses,” Scorsese’s 25th feature focuses on Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, a hitman who confessed to the 1975 murder of union activist and Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

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Niko Tavernise, Netflix

Over 209 minutes, Scorsese scans the life and times and crimes of Frank, a World War II killing machine who became very comfortable pulling the trigger while mowing Nazis down into graves.

After getting out, he takes up driving a meat-packing delivery truck only to team up with a local gangster in a scamming operation. He works his way up the ranks and ends up becoming right-hand man to the mobbed-up Hoffa, played Al Pacino – the first time the mob film icon has teamed up with Scorsese.

Like “Casino” and “Good Fellas,” “The Irishman” is a true-crime portrait of working-class guy drawn to the allure of organized crime: the money, the lifestyle, the idea of being a somebody.

As they say, however: There’s no Mafia Retirement Plan… which is something of a problem. We’ve seen this play out before, with Sam "Ace" Rothstein in “Casino” and Henry Hill in “Good Fellas.”

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From left, Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), his daughter Peggy (Lucy Gallina) and Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci). (Netlfix)

It plays out very differently in “The Irishman.”

Scorsese trades in the colorful dialogue and stylized violence we’ve come to associate with the director for a sober, somber fatalism. The coke-fueled flourishes and sweaty paranoid faces set to Rolling Stones and Harry Nilsson tunes are nowhere to be found. Ditto for the killing sprees set to “Layla.”

After all, those were different times.

The mob, like the powerful labor movement, is a distant memory from a long-gone America. The rogues that often found themselves at the helms of both have been replaced by entrepreneurs who trade in 21st century feel-goodisms while getting filthy rich.

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Niko Tavernise, Netflix

There’s another reason much closer to “The Irishman.” De Niro is 76 and appears older than his character, even after the use of a de-aging technology used to make flashback scenes seem more believable. Pacino is 79 and Pesci is 76.

You have to suspend disbelief and look past the aging issues to fully appreciate “The Irishman,” but it’s made easier with Scorsese’s artful exploration of life and death in the mob.

Most mobsters perish in a hail of bullets or rot and die in jail; Frank has outlived his peers and accomplices. And yet what is there to do but ponder the past and lament that his daughter – superbly played by Anna Paquin – wants nothing to do with him?

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Niko Tavernise, Netflix

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Scorsese criticized Marvel superhero films for lacking "revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger." "Nothing is at risk," he wrote. "The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands… They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit."

Those looking for a sequel or a remake to the mob movie will be disappointed with “The Irishman.”

It’s a poetic elegy stripped of romance and glamour, told by an elderly man who somehow survived his time in the mob and lived to tell his story, even if his soul perished years ago.

In some smoky club far, far away there will be wise guys busting balls and cackling wildly as the whiskey flows and the music plays and they throw ill-gotten money at coked-up molls while their wives wait up at home.

Those days seem to be over for Scorsese. As the credits scrolled across the screen, I couldn’t help but think that “The Irishman” is it.

The crew is old in the tooth. The world is a different place. And you might as well end it with “The Irishman” – a triumph filled will splendor and sorrow.

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