The Irishman (2019)

If there was ever one film that everyone was talking about then it was definitely 2019's The Irishman which was directed by Martin Scorcese (The Wolf Of Wall Street) as he reunites with Robert De Niro (The Score) and Joe Pesci (Raging Bull) for the first time since 1995's Casino. The film stars De Niro as aging hitman Frank Sheeran who has to try and balance his loyalty towards the mafia and to his friend and boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) through the 1950's until Hoffa's disappearance in the 1970's. Sit back and relax as Frank tells you the tale of having both a privileged and dangerous life that came with its consequences. The film also stars Pesci as Russell Bufalino, Harvey Keitel (Pulp Fiction) as Angelo Bruno, Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) as Bill Bufalino, Bobby Cannavale (Boardwalk Empire) as Skinny Razor, Anna Paquin (X-Men) as Peggy Sheeran, Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire) as Anthony 'Tony Pro' Provenzano, Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) as Robert Kennedy, Jesse Plemons (Game Night) as Chuckie O'Brien, Paul Herman (Silver Linings Playbook) as Whispers DiTullio, Louis Cancelmi (21 Bridges) as Sally Bugs, Sebastian Maniscalco (The House) as Crazy Joe Gallo, Steven Van Zandt (The Sopranos) as Jerry Vale, and Stephanie Kurtzuba (The Wolf Of Wall Street) as Irene Sheeran.

There are a few things you have to be willing to do in order to watch this film and one of those is that you have to be willing to devote three hours of your life to this film because it goes for that long. It's a really good story and it's well acted if you give those three hours of your life to it. The other thing you have to do is that you have to get used to the fact that they used CGI to make everyone younger, but the fact of the matter is that Robert De Niro had no business trying to beat the crap out of a guy during the film. What I mean by that is that he looked like a guy in maybe his 40's with the CGI who fought like an 80 year old man with bad hips. Once you can get passed that then it's an excellent film and one of the other things I liked is when they introduced a character that was minor or major, there was always stats that told you when they bit the bullet. I thought that was a little different, but the film is very much a 21ST century version of Goodfellas with the narration and so on. I have to say that I think Al Pacino was on top of his game as he played Jimmy Hoffa with conviction. He sort of made Jimmy a loveable and hateable character in the idea that you can see why the mob wanted to get rid of him, but you could also see why people loved him as well. I definitely am taking into consideration that how they explained his death in this film is probably what really happened. How else could he have disappeared for this long? I definitely think it's worth at least one watch which is why I am giving the film an B+ and I just wanted to say that I loved Stephen Graham in this film.