The Irishman: Does the Conclusion Justify the Runtime?

The Irishman is Martin Scorsese’s latest film and it was released in theaters for a limited time and then on Netflix. It’s Scorsese’s longest film running at three and a half hours. Long movies are fine if they are compelling enough to keep the audience interested for that long.

The Irishman stars Robert De Niro as a hitman for a crime family. Joe Pesci is someone he works for and they both are shown as young men. They use digital de-aging technology on both actors and while it’s better than other versions of this it is still noticeable. It’s like their faces are made out of clay and it’s distracting. De Niro also has these blue contact lenses in and they don’t look natural.

Al Pacino plays Jimmy Hoffa and he is wonderful. I feel he is the best part of the movie. De Niro works for him for awhile and this I feel these are the best parts. This movie should have been about Hoffa I feel because it’s a more interesting story. To be honest there is enough material for two movies. One about Hoffa, and one about De Niro’s character.

It is established that De Niro’s character isn’t the best father or has extreme methods of dealing with family problems. The movie tries to resolve this at the end but this theme isn’t established enough throughout the movie to give the conclusion the meaning its supposed to have. It feels a bit tacked on at the end. This movie is good but not as good as I feel everyone else is praising it for. It’s also just too long and not interesting enough to justify three and a half hours. Scorsese has done plenty of long movies, some hitting the three hour mark that have kept the audience interested throughout like The Wolf of Wall Street and Silence, but The Irishman I feel isn't one of them. I’m glad it was on Netflix because I can imagine sitting through this in theaters. 🍔🍔 and 1/2 🍔