The Irishman

After a lot of procrastination, I finally decided to watch Martin Scorsese's The Irishman and I must say that its 209 minutes of pure art. Its adapted from the book named "I Heard You Paint Houses" by Charles Brandt where painting houses is used as euphemism for murder or contract killing. Charles Brandt is a former homicide prosecutor, investigator and defence attorney who wrote the above mentioned non-fiction narrative and published it in the year 2004.

But what is the story about?

The story revolves around 1 man - Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) and his alliance with mafia, teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). It begins when Frank is sitting in a nursing home recounting his old days as a hitman for the crime syndicate. It simply shows the journey of Frank from a truck driver to the high-ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the president of local 326. Frank was closely related to the Bufalino family. He supposedly did criminal activities for the Bufalino family on the orders given by Russel Bufalino (Joe Pesci). He was also related to Jimmy Hoffa and his family. Basically Frank was the middle man,the intermediate route for message passing between a lot of people and Jimmy.

Well I shouldn't write anything more as its a political film and needs more viewing rather than reading. Every shot, every scene has an important character or an important link which makes us sit through this 3 hour 30 min long movie. I know these days its difficult to sit for so long and I do have a solution for it. We can view Irishman as a mini series if we watch it in the following way

Episode 1 :  Start to 49:00
                   Cut when Jimmy Hoffa ends the call.

Episode 2 : 49:00 to 1:40:00
                    Cut When Joey the Blond is introduced

Episode 3 : 1:40:00 to 2:47:30
                    Cut when Frank exits the house (You'll know when)

Episode 4 : 2:47:30 to end

Apart from the amazing direction by Scorsese, the dialogues are way too thought provoking  and also the way they are delivered makes it even more impactful. Some of the dialogues that I liked were :-
1) Three of them can keep a secret only if two of them are dead - Frank Sheeran
2) Whenever somebody says they're a little concerned, they're very concerned - Frank Sheeran
3) You might be demonstrating a failure to show appreciation - Russel Bufalino
4) Russel went to the church. Then he went to the prison hospital. And then he went to the graveyard  - Frank Sheeran

Its time to jump right to the VFX part. The scenes were filmed with a custom three-camera rig to help facilitate the extensive de-ageing digital effects that made De Niro, Pacino and Pesci appear younger. With a production budget of $159 million and a runtime of 209 minutes, it is among the most expensive and longest films of Scorsese's career.

The Irishman premiered at the 57th New York Film Festival, and had a limited theatrical release on November 1, 2019, followed by digital streaming on Netflix starting on November 27, 2019. It received critical acclaim, with praise for Scorsese's direction and the performances of De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci. The film received numerous accolades at the 92nd Academy Awards, it received 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Pacino and Pesci, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Additionally, at the 77th Golden Globe Awards, it was nominated for five awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, while it earned 10 nominations at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film.

As always I'll be providing a  snippet of the IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes rating scheme for viewer satisfaction. Comment down what you liked about The Irishman. Also comment about different Martin Scorsese movies that you want me to watch and review.