The Irishman is Not a Very Good Movie, and Must Therefore Win
Spoilers for real. There are actually spoilers for a lot of different classic mob movies in this article, and that’s appropriate because The Irishman is a mishmash of all the classic mob movies. Come to think of it, there’s a big spoiler for Blue Velvet in here, too. I’m just saying, spoilers, tho.
The Irishman is not a very good movie. It is deeply formulaic and unrepentently predictable, just the familiar mafia guys seeming to faintly enjoy themselves as they put on the old suits, slick back the old wigs, and hungrily eye the scenery in Martin Scorsese’s trademark Little Italy. It’s a sort of Greatest Hits compilation of Goodfellas, Mean Streets, Casino, The Godfathers, Donnie Brasco, Once Upon A Time in America, and all that shit. It’s just another mob movie, and the fact that it’s got all the most famous mob movie guys only serves to accentuate that fact. I always thought it was pretty cool that Scorsese didn’t get these guys for The Departed. They were around, and I imagine they would have said yes if he called them; but instead he cast Nicholson and DiCaprio and Matt Damon and all these different guys, so it felt more like watching a new movie. Not this time. The Irishman is such a crass exercise — DENIRO! PACINO! SCORSESE! HOLLYWOOD’S BIGGEST MOB BOSSES, TOGETHER AT LAST! That publicity kerfuffle, wherein Scorsese said Marvel movies…
