Mobsters die bloody, undistinguished deaths in Martin Scorsese' The Irishman.
Not that we get to see those deaths or their gruesome details. Scorsese, lifelong poet and artist of violence and crime, who once scored unforgettable rock epics against montages of once proud and boastful men being shot, stabbed and beaten to death and their bodies being discovered by dumbstruck policemen, refrains, this time, from showing us the obvious; rather, we are told the hard, cold facts of their inevitable fate, the unflinching truth writ large on the screen whenever we are given our first, undeniably impressive glimpses of these men in their heyday. And right then, it is apparent what the veteran filmmaker is gunning for: an unfurnished portrait of the brutal reality of a life of crime, of how it goes down, in the end, to a futile waste.
It is this sad, melancholy sense of wistful regret, of an awareness of this very same futility, that marks so much of The Irishman and, in effect, makes it a strangely timeless film, a cinematic experience both exquisite and elegiac, a rare thing: a crime saga that, for the first time, makes us feel the weary, heavy-hearted toll of an entire lifetime marked by death, betrayal and a vain attempt at grabbing back glory.
Scorsese' film begins, unexpectedly, in a nursing home for ageing old-timers. The camera, in a trademark Scorsese long-shot, cruises leisurely down a corridor while The Five Satins' In The Still Of The Night, a pop classic that will surely gain eternity with its wonderful usage in this film, plays in the background like muzak. Our gaze circles around a grizzly, white-haired man sprawled on his wheelchair and then, he stares back at us through his inscrutable dark glasses and starts to talk.
That old man was once Frank Sheeran, the titular Irish-American freebooter and this is, at least in the beginning, ostensibly, about his rise, from a trucker stealing prime steaks to a trusted, tight-lipped henchman for a Mafioso family, with a penchant for "painting houses" and doing more odd jobs. For a good part of the first hour of this leisurely, almost larger-than-life narrative, unravelling gracefully and unhurriedly over 210 minutes, we follow his arc, we sense his gradually sharpening sense of a professional dedication to his unsavoury profession and also, deep inside his almost icy soul, a stirring ghost of disenchantment.
Propping him on his predestined path deeper into the darkness of crime is his de facto benefactor and "made man" Russell Buffalino, a taciturn, affable yet shrewd mob boss adroitly pulling the strings, making negotiations and keeping things on an even keel. The two men share an unlikely mentor-protege dynamic that is soon supplanted by the arrival on the scene of a bigger player in the story inspired from real-life history. Union bigwig Jimmy Hoffa offers Sheeran, already touted and well-spoken for his efficient talents, the chance to be a "a part of this history"; a history of vain wish fulfilment in which the unions wage war against the Kennedy dynasty. Can Sheeran deliver on his promise?
And while we are all aware, by now of the director's unerring mastery of this particular genre and milieu of storytelling, that is what we are tempted to ask ourselves too: can Scorsese, too, deliver on his promise, to even overshadow the unrivalled greatness of his earlier works? Can he give us something as canonical and inimitable as Goodfellas all over again? It is reassuring to know that he can, that he does, resoundingly so, though not quite in the same way as you expect. The Irishman has the director's immaculate signature emblazoned on every big and little scene and yet it is fuelled, this time, less with a delirious. hyper-kinetic energy and anarchy and more with a gnawing acknowledgement of guilt and a throbbing emotional resonance that puts it up there as the finest, most poignant of crime films ever made.
Cinematographer Rodriego Prieto shoots this film like a fever dream; scored to the choicest of classic pop and rock and roll hits and Robbie Robertson's intense, almost Leone-like harmonica swells, the lavish long-takes are breathtaking in how they bring to life a world of the past, a sense of time and place in history, with such authenticity and bruising intimacy, that we are drawn into this world with effortless artistic mastery while Thelma Schoonmaker cuts the rich, elaborately measured screenplay by Steven Zaillian, with the finesse of the finest tailor and yet, Scorsese breaks and subverts his own rules here: a tracking shot digresses and closes up on a row of floral wreaths in a shop window while shots from a saloon are heard in the background, a sudden murder in broad daylight is filmed in ultra slow motion so that we register each moment of outrage and shocked disbelief and, in one ingenious reference to The Godfather, we all stop breathing as a woman hesitates to turn on the ignition.
For all this dazzling daredevilry, demonstrating a director in the very peak of his prowess, it is when The Irishman strikes hard at its emotional core, especially in the film's final, painfully troubling hour of devastating reveals and disillusioning conclusions, that the film achieves both the heartrending beauty and dystopian complexity of such deconstructionist works of cinema such as The Wild Bunch and of literature as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. As in these iconoclast creations, the very tropes that were always the mainstay of these stories are turned on their head and, for the first time, we look at these popular, almost mythic characters without their pretensions and facades of make-believe glory or even villainy. Rather, we see them as they are, people living a lost dream, nursing futile hopes and rendered vulnerable by the inevitability of their fall from grace. The overwhelming feeling, despite the routinely entertaining, smoothly orchestrated twists and turns and Zaillian's juicy, profanity-ridden dialogue, is of unmistakable despair, of a last and foolhardy shot at greatness and everlasting legacy.
The performances are unforgettable and indelible. Al Pacino, playing Hoffa with crackling electricity, harnessing all his spontaneity and fire to the best effect, makes for an irresistibly showboating character, an easily flustered rabble-rouser who won't take it lying down and whose quixotic denial of the increasingly dire realities around him set the stage for the film's real rub. Joe Pesci is even more extraordinary as Russell Buffalino, ageing with measured, beautifully calculated grace with each new plot proceeding, superbly in place and quietly, magnificently at the helm of the devastating decisions that he has to take. This itself feels like something of a miracle; the astonishingly combustible performer, who had earlier built a reputation out of his usually hot-headed, almost psychopathic mobsters, reins himself majestically, appearing almost like a doppelganger for the director himself.
This is an ensemble cast for ages, of men that we had seen on the screen so many times as quotable and forever influential mobsters; another Scorsese collaborator of the yesteryears shows up in a truly memorable cameo as the silken Angelo Bruno while Stephen Graham chomps up much scenery alongside the already celebrated legends as a sneering, smarmy rival union leader who triggers Hoffa's explosive rage. Watch out, also, for Anna Paquin, as Sheeran's daughter Peggy who is also an unlikely witness to his dirty deeds and also his silent and troubled conscience.
And then there is Robert De Niro. Returning to the screen with the filmmaker who is irreversibly responsible for their most incredible collective triumphs, here is the veteran actor, lately miscast in works of mostly variable quality, finally recovering his true histrionic greatness. His Sheeran is a performance of almost unbelievable honesty and emotional power; even as he stays stoic and stiff-lipped about his dedication to his chosen vocation, his guilt and pathos are to be found in those eternally exquisite, wistful eyes, in his silences and in the way he tries to disguise them as his indifference. This is ultimately his story, the heartbreaking tale of his own inevitable fall from grace, condemned to live with the betrayal that he commits and unable and even reluctant to find redemption. De Niro plays each beat, from the measured, almost perfunctory attempts at affability and warmth to the growing sense of disillusionment with the world around him, with pure perfection. It is a performance as timeless as this film.
The film comes full circle at the end, Scorsese pulling out and zooming in to Sheeran's room in that very nursing home, but not before the man is subjected to his own trial of fire, compelled, by age and desolation, to face, for the first time, his own vulnerability, of death knocking on his door, the door that he leaves ajar in the film's final, haunting frame. All through these 210 minutes, this was what Scorsese was always driving at. At its heart, cold and yet bleeding with the guilt of lies told and blood spilled, The Irishman is about these brutal but battered and broken men trying to find some forgiveness for their failings, in vain. As Raymond Chandler wrote so truly, dead men are heavier than broken hearts.
My Rating: 5 Stars
