I think the people who disliked the movie are making a category mistake.
They are taking it to be a standard gangster movie, when in fact it’s a lot closer to an art movie.
It’s subverting the whole idea of a gangster movie - a mockumentary, as aruvqan says - and commenting on things like the nature of society, the nature of evil, the emptiness and meaninglessness of a life badly lived. All those freeze frames telling you the fate of various characters (‘so-and-so, died 19__, shot eight times in his kitchen’) are there for a reason.
What we should be seeing throughout the movie is the stupidity, the silliness, the petty egos, the bad decisions. The focus is on mortality and aging, the passage of time. The young female doctor at the end who has never even heard of Jimmy Hoffa underlines the total futility and pointlessness of everything that happened.
I think the more likely explanation is that Scorcese has a stable of actors–a stable that we are used to seeing in gangster flicks. At this point, their acting chops are pretty much secondary to their high name recognition. We have already been primed to see De Niro and Pesci as an gangster duo. So folks will watch this movie because hey, it’s our ole gangster buddies, who we already know and love. Not a bunch of no-names who we’ve never seen before.
To wit, Harvey Keitel’s presence was pure cameo, IMHO. All he did was puff on a cigar and do some gesturing and grinning. Because I love me some Harvey, I’m OK with his. But Harvey wasn’t selected because they couldn’t find another guy to play Big Important Mobster. He was selected because of people like me who love them some Harvey Keitel.
So no, I don’t agree with the reasoning that there were no other actors who could match De Niro, Pesci, or Pacino’s acting abilities. They were chosen to draw in the fans, first and foremost, because in lots of people’s eyes, whether they want to cop to it or not, it ain’t a real mob flick unless you have those guys.
Personally, I think Leonardo Di Caprio would have made a great Frank. But YMMV.
You mean Goodfellas? I think everyone is taking it as a Martin Scorcese movie basically. He’s been doing this stuff for a while. This is not a fresh new take on anything, except for the improvy talk. He is all about control.
The three and a half hours that passed while watching it and how much we aged?
I readily admit I’ve never been a fan of the genre so likely missed some of the references made to Scorcese’s other mob works.
But really three and half hours to make the profound statement that we get old and what was important to us during our lives may not be remembered by those who follow us?
Acted well enough. The CGI did not bother me or take me out. The fantasy aspect of this one mobster being like Forrest Gump, everywhere from Bay of Pigs to killing Hoffa? Suspension of disbelief works fine. It is not real history. Something worth seeing as an intellectual exercise in the art form of making movies by a master of the craft. But a movie like this works for me based on how much it can make me feel about the characters and the relationships as they go along. The love between Russ and Frank? Just didn’t feel it. It left me as cold as the fish must have been when first put in the back of that car. It maybe didn’t stink as bad but “profound conclusion”? I didn’t see one in this movie.
That just took me out of the movie over and over again. Hell, even the face de-aging doesn’t look good; he might not look 70, but he sure as shit doesn’t look like anyone who could be called “young man.”
But he clearly moves like an old man. There is no hiding that. Humans see that; you cannot fool the mind that way.
The movie is just crappy. It’s the same movie Scorsese has made before, with mostly the same people. Casting DeNiro was just a terrible decision, and I’ve seen Goodfellas, Casino, and all the rest before. It is far, far too long and does nothing new.
Critics 94% - 54 positive reviews, no mixed or negative reviews
Users 85% - 308 positive, 25 mixed, 28 negative
The film is almost certain to win several Oscars.
Of course there is no arguing about taste, but I’m wondering if most of the arguing here is perhaps more about arguing for the sake of arguing than the merits of the movie.
I actually don’t see anyone (except you) arguing anything. I see people posting their opinions about things they liked and didn’t like about the movie. We are all just trading opinions here. Not having a debate.
By the way, appealing to the bandwagon isn’t going to convince anyone to reconsider their own feelings about something. 90% of people may love watermelon, but that matters not one bit about how I feel about watermelon (I think it is the fruit form of hate).
While the movie had some great performances and a compelling enough story line, I still haven’t gone back to finish the last 20 minutes. So I’d say it was about 20 minutes too long. I don’t know why this opinion should raise anyone’s eyebrows, given the fact that the movie does have an unconventionally long duration. And honestly, I don’t really care that 94% of critics do not agree with me on this point. Why should I?
Wonder away. I watch movies primarily for entertainment (which can take several forms.) To use one comparison, I found Goodfellas entertaining, and have watched it several times. I could not say the same about The Irishman. And personally, I was not as bothered by the CGI as some were.
Lots of comments about the futility of a criminal life and the losses that Frank suffered, but I think it was done much better in Blow.
Overall, it just seemed like a tired film made by tired actors for a tired director. Perhaps it’s a product of meditating on their own ages, but the result was much less than what I had been hoping for.
I haven’t seen the movie, but from the comments here it looks as if it either a monumentally boring film to those who don’t know the references and don’t know the (now aging) stars, and and on the other a tribute to all the mob movies, played by the same old crew, and showing their stuff. Well, I’ll see it one day, but 3.5 hours requires some serious stamina.
I suppose that the director chose to CGI the characters to look younger becuse we all know what they looked like when young because they got famous early on. I have not seen how well it worked, but I can only say that it is very rare for someone to be able to play someone much older than yourself without something looking wrong. And rejuvenating from 70 to 30? Too much of a jump. You can do it in the opposite direction, up to a point, but you get thicker and heavier with age and you don’t have the same fluidity of movement. (Said he, creaking painfully.) I think you really do need wetware actors to play younger people. If you know the actor, you immediately say: “Ha, he didn’t look like *that *when he was young!”
I notice that many adverts use CGI. Sometimes the faces are either CGI or heavily edited human. Either way I find it creepy and impersonal, but then nobody asked me. The same goes for adding dead actors to films with CGI. Yes, *Gladiator *and Oliver Reed. They do say that the living and the dead should never try to meet, and I think they have a point.
A movie is a vast undertaking. It is never just one thing.
I wanted to see it, and found it to be masterful fimmaking. I won’t second guess MS. I wanted especially to see his take on all the historic events in the timeline.
It took almost 15 years to get it made, so deniro was 59 then.
It was a reasonable length for say a UK series, 4 episodes maybe. I watched it in two sessions.
The technical stuff and the strange feeling of having robert mueller be a punk kid gangster is so off. Pesci and deniro are too known as quantities.
It is very depressing to realize that robs movements in the film are what is happening to me and won’t get any better. Thanks guys.
And Robert Deniro is not Irish. He sounds like a heavy new york accented man whose second language is italian. Frank Sheeran was a big blond imposing presence. It was very noticable that there is no threat in the physical presences of deniro or pesci anymore.
I suppose that objections to this film can be countered by saying that it’s really all about the decay, or the lameness of being bad, or something.
I’m not a populist, and fact someone else thinks it’s a great movie doesn 't mean I have to.
As long as we’re accusing others of not presently honest arguments, I really think a lot of the over-the-top praise for the movies is unthinking and reflexive; the assumption that, well, it’s a Scorsese movie with guys like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, so it must be great.
I really hope we aren’t in for a whole generation of movies featuring actors who have been CGI-modified to play parts they wouldn’t otherwise suited for. Call me crazy, but I don’t want to see Julia Roberts in CGI-brownface playing Harriet Tubman. Or a 70-year-old Tom Hanks playing a 25-year old Larry Bird. I loved the CGI used to make Margot Robbie into Tonya Harding, so I am not anti-CGI. But I don’t like the idea of using CGI as a gimmick or as a way to maximize the star power of a film. Like, I think a lot of people are watching the Irishman just to see what a de-aged blue-eyed De Niro looks like. Why wouldn’t they? That is what most of the internet buzz has been focused on.
I enjoyed it for the most part, though I thought Pacino-as-Hoffa was the weakest link. I’ll echo what others have said about Pesci – his restraint in the role is fantastic, especially since we’ve been trained to expect his characters to be completely out of control.
Having just read the Slate article – which makes a pretty good case that Sheeran’s story is 100% fiction – it occurs to me that the entire thing could be viewed as the fanciful, wishfully enhanced memories of a peripheral mob character who didn’t commit any of the murders he claims but, desperate for significance in his later years, invents a bigger role for himself.
It will also take a whole bunch of CGU(gly) to makw any actor look like Bird.