THE IRISHMAN

Director: Martin Scorsese

209, R

Screenwriter: Martin Scorsese and Steven Zaillian. Editor: Thelma Schoonmaker

Cast: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Anna Paquin, Kathrine Narducci, Ray Romano, Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale, Jesse Plemons.

 

At the NY Film Festival screening of The Irishman, the word was that Scorsese’s new movie is a triumph on par with GoodFellas and Raging Bull. The story of hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro, in a film that deserves him) who may have whacked Jimmy Hoffa (an extraordinary Al Pacino) has a lot going for it. There’s the actors who we’ve enjoyed for over 40-odd years in Scorsese movies. Add a great script, music, and a poetic melancholy, and you have is a late-career masterpiece. We won’t complain much about Netflix: after all, to quote Variety’s chief critic Owen Glieberman, “The Irishman was made, by one of the key film virtuosos of the last half century, as a work of cinema to be shared in the secular temple that the movie theater still is.” 

Named Best Picture by New York Film Critics Circle