Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman finally arrived on Netflix this week. The highly-anticipated and long-in-development gangster film sees Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci reuniting for the first time since Casino and it’s also the first time Scorsese and Al Pacino have ever worked together (if you can believe it).
And the film is apparently living up to all the hype according to critics. With a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, folks are praising The Irishman as an epic and meditative story about mortality.
See for yourself below:
“It’s a cinematic tour de force in form and substance, representing late-career high points for director Scorsese and his lead actors Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci,” says the Toronto Star’s Peter Howell.
“There are 209 minutes in The Irishman and not one of them is wasted,” says Chris Hewitt of the Minneapolis Tribune.
Even our own Luke Parker is singing its praises as fantastic, saying the following in his review:
Handled cautiously and confidently by a pioneering troupe of filmmakers whose legacies were all bred from such mafiusu affairs, The Irishman greets the screen like an old, longed-for friend.
But as Chris Hewitt mentioned, it’s a long film. I mean, really long. And with the main protagonists all being old white guys, this isn’t a movie that’s going to appeal to the same demographic as Avengers: Endgame (which is also 3 hours, by the way).
In fact, a quick search on social media reveals all kinds of hot takes from regular audiences, and we’ve picked out just a few of them for you to browse below:
https://twitter.com/djhenshall/status/1200398457044979717
https://twitter.com/billtapperzoho1/status/1199874004934377472
https://twitter.com/serendipiteedee/status/1200523087852318720
https://twitter.com/AnitaPicoteando/status/1200197547983343616
An hour into the Irishman and have to say it’s the most over valued movie ive seen in years. Hot take alert…it’s terrible and don’t recommend. Boring. Long. Confusing. A snooze. Rating: F #DavesTomatoes
— Dave’s Tomatoes (@McMahonia) November 29, 2019
https://twitter.com/DavisStockwell/status/1200485317809229826
THE IRISHMAN’s main triumph – and make no mistake, it is one, especially at three-and-a-half-hours – is squeezing a bit more life out of cinema’s third-most-stultifying narrative trope i.e. old, boring Catholic men being afraid of the hell fire.
— Ricky Young OM (@Hankinshaw) November 29, 2019
After 7 hours I just finished The Irishman on @NetflixUK. Man, that film was baggy, long & boring.
I’m a huge Scorsese fan but in my opinion The Irishman doesn’t hold a candle to Goodfellas, Casino, Raging Bull or The Wolf Of Wall Street.
— That Shit Cray (@Craigisonfire) November 29, 2019
Clearly, “boring” is the operative word here. I haven’t had a chance to see the film for myself yet, but considering my favorite movie of the century so far is Zodiac, I’d say The Irishman will be right up my alley.
It makes me wonder, though, if this had been released as a miniseries rather than a feature film, would these people still feel the same way? After all, three one hour episodes are more digestible for the binge-watching generation of today. A 209 minute movie just feels like a chore even before it begins (for some).
Then again, this sounds like an old-fashioned drama made by some of the greatest filmmakers of the past 50 years and Hollywood just doesn’t make these types of movies anymore, which is why someone like Scorsese had to go to Netflix to get it produced. Steven Spielberg had a similar challenge making Lincoln seven years ago. That film was going to be at HBO before he was finally able to sell it to Disney and Fox.
The point is, there isn’t one movie that everyone loves. I had a roommate once who hated Jaws. Yes, you read that right. Film is subjective. Some people find The Irishman slow and boring, and that’s fine. I’ll form my own opinion though after I’ve seen it and then I’ll probably just move on with my life.