Photo ©Netflix
Warning, spoilers ahead!
Martin Scorsese is back! Three years after his film, “The Silence” was released, starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, Scorsese makes his return with a three-hour epic that premiered during Thanksgiving week. The film boasts an all-star cast which includes Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Anna Paquin, which makes it the 7th movie collaboration between the director and the two Oscar-winning actors.
“The Irishman” follows Frank Sheeran (De Niro), a World War II vet, who lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughters. Sheeran soon meets Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci). Sheeran, a truck driver hired by local meat suppliers, goes to work for Bufalio, and becomes a hitman. He finds himself entangled in shady situations, including getting involved with the mob in New Jersey and New York. He also gets mixed up with Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) who was then president of the Teamsters Union in Detroit. Fifty years ago, the Teamsters were one of the biggest and most powerful unions, representing blue-collar America workers who had jobs driving trucks.
Sheeran loves Hoffa and goes to work for him as he feels he stands for the working class. The movie depicts their travels through the years, as the duo embark on shady and illegal business dealings between the union and the mob in the 1960s when the Kennedys had Hoffa investigated for taking money from various Teamster pensions. It covers a long span between JFK’s assassination, Hoffa being sent to prison, and then his own mysterious disappearance.
“The Irishman” showcases Sheeran’s later life in 2018, as he is now in his late 80s with most of his friends dead from natural causes, killed by gang members, or like Sheeran – being sent to prison because of his past crimes.
I loved this movie and highly recommend it, despite the length and at times, weird time jumps. Martin Scorsese is close to 80, but from the looks of this movie, it doesn’t appear he’s slowing down anytime soon. With a stellar cast and a great storyline, it’s one of my favorite films of 2019. The plot adds a little more mystery of what happened to Hoffa and who might have killed him. I’d recommend watching The Irishman after you finish finals and when you have time to relax for three hours during our long-awaited break.
