# Did anyone else find The Irishman to be disappointing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** netflix, movies\ **Created:** [December 4, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-else-find-the-irishman-to-be-disappointing/927164 "2020-12-04T02:23:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-else-find-the-irishman-to-be-disappointing/927164/1 "2020-12-04T02:23:19Z")
No spoilers in the OP but they might come up in the thread. But the movie is based on a real person and historical events so whose fault is it if you don’t know the story? I’m a big Martin Scorsese fan. And I like crime movies. So I had high expectations for _The Irishman_ when it was released on bluray a couple of weeks back. It was a Criterion release and everything. But now that I’ve watched it, I am very underwhelmed. There were good points. But I feel the story dragged; Scorsese included a lot of shots that seemed to have no purpose. There were also a lot of scenes that were tying in the story to historical events, which didn’t seem to have a point. But the biggest problem was the protagonist; Frank Sheeran seemed to be an almost completely passive character. He followed orders. That was it. We were given no insight into what motivated him like we had with Travis Bickle or Jake LaMotta or Rupert Pupkin. After I finished the movie, I went looking at reviews to see if there was some key insight I missed. I didn’t find it. What I did find is that a lot of people seem to have really liked this movie. It was on a lot of top ten lists. So what did other people see that I missed? Did the problems I experienced not bother other people? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-else-find-the-irishman-to-be-disappointing/927164/2 "2020-12-04T02:28:37Z")
We had prior threads on this. > [@The Irishman SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-irishman-spoilers-spoilers-spoilers/843750/46): > > As Joseph Gordon-Levitt said to Bruce Willis (in which the latter appropriately played an older version of the former’s character, without relying on CGI to down-age Willis), it’s time for these older actors to “do what old men do, and die.” I don’t mean literally, but yeah, this movie needed younger actors up-aged through makeup where necessary, not old actors who couldn’t act young to save their lives. And seriously, two of the most well-known Italian American actors of all time playing an I… > [@The Irishman (no spoilers)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-irishman-no-spoilers/844172): > > I saw it the day it was released on Netflix. Then I watched it again. I think The Irishman is one of the great movies of all time. It is a film that moves on multiple levels, with intersecting themes that carry it to a profound conclusion. On one level, you can watch it as Scorsese’s homage to the genre (which, to a large extent, is his), or to its stars. DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino are playing themselves playing characters we already know. Characters whose fate, like that of the actors’ themse… > [@The Irishman Question](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-irishman-question/844178/2): > > basically, the original studio didn’t want to spend the money, nor realease a film over 3 hours ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-else-find-the-irishman-to-be-disappointing/927164/3 "2020-12-04T02:38:21Z")
Good point. I’ll ask a mod to shut this thread down. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-else-find-the-irishman-to-be-disappointing/927164/4 "2020-12-04T02:43:50Z")