Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
The Irishman
The stated mission of The Couch Potato’s Guide to Home Viewing has been to inform my readers about some of the outstanding programs available for your home viewing pleasure. I’ve done a couple movie reviews, put together a couple of lists classifying films by theme and genre, and I hope it’s been helpful for you.
As we enter into our third week of forced, and necessary, isolation, I wanted to share one of my favorite films of the past year, a masterpiece from a true American icon. To call The Irishman an epic endeavor is to call Meryl Streep an “okay” actor. This movie has it all. I mean a mob picture starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Ray Romano, Harvey Keitel—plus dozens more—and written by Stephen Zillian? And directed by Marty Scorcese? C’mon. This isn’t just a movie, this is a cultural event. And (all hyperbole aside), it really is a fantastic movie.
But it’s more than that. My wife and I, grizzled cable TV veterans, kept pausing the film to ask who it that guy? Is that Beansie (Paul Herman) or Charmaine (Kathrine Narducci) from The Sopranos? Or is that the guy (Bobby Cannavalle) from Boardwalk Empire? Watching it was like being at a cast party—or a family reunion—of some of the best crime shows of the last ten years. That in itself makes this movie a ton of fun. Beyond that, The Irishman is a phenomenal motion picture, although, beware, with a continuous running time of three and one-half hours, you may want to build in a break or two. Enjoy.
The Irishman
Found on Netflix
Starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, and Ray Romano. Directed by Martin Scorcese. Written by Stephen Zillian.
(Review originally posted December 5, 2019)
Artwork by Michael DiMilo
After the Thanksgiving holiday, during our recuperation period, my family and I sat down and watched Martin Scorsese’s new film, The Irishman, in its entirety. To say the film is epic is to abuse the term understatement; not only is the film’s running time three and one-half hours, but the storyline spans six decades of mob and union history. On top of all that, the movie features Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, legendary iconic actors. This film tells the story of—along with a myriad of other events—the circumstances leading to the demise of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.
The cast is epic: Pacino plays Hoffa brilliantly, while Pesci portrays Mafia kingpin Russell Bufalino with a calculated restraint, and DeNiro plays Frank Sheeran, the narrator and Bufalino’s right hand man, as a shrewdly compliant operative. Sheeran eventually goes to work for Hoffa as his bodyguard, eventually befriending him and his family. As he has previously done with former works like Goodfellas, Mean Streets, The Departed, and Casino, Scorsese explores the allure and aggrandizement of the mobster mythology while never abandoning his examinations of the human frailties of those who participate in it. These characters are for the most part family men and—aside from the fact that they steal and kill for their livings—are not that different from us.
Even so, this still begs the question of how these men, violent predators and parasites on our society, are such a beloved part of American culture. Productions like The Godfather saga, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Goodfellas, and The Departed, as well their precursors White Heat, Little Ceasar, and Bonnie and Clyde, have fascinated the American movie-going public for decades. The genre is lucrative, consistent, and a mainstay of Hollywood and the American psyche. Tony Soprano, Henry Hill, and Michael Corleone are modern day heroes: rebels and avatars of rugged individualists choosing to forge their own path through the world.
There is a deeply ingrained respect in American culture for those who defy authority—the outlaws—that goes all the way back to the American Revolution and the Old West. The maverick who will take the law into his own hands, who will stand up for what he believes in, and who exists outside the social mainstream is the essence of the American hero.
In The Godfather, Don Vito Corleone chose to carve out his own system of law and order in order to protect his people as a traditional Italian patriarch. Tony Soprano is the head of both his families—Don and paterfamilia—encountering similar problems at home and in the workplace as most middle-class Americans. As a result, his life seems to be simultaneously mundane and exhilarating. Tony has problems coping with his children’s behavior, his spouse’s frustrations, and his associates’ incompetence, but he has the greatest difficulty dealing with himself, so much so that he has to see a psychiatrist. We like Tony despite the fact that he is a criminal, or even perhaps because he is one, but his greatest appeal is that he is human and full of frailties.
Empathetic as they are, what makes these mobsters so fascinating and beloved to us? They kill people, are wantonly violent, and corrupt many of our most revered institutions. But these sorts of criminals are predictable; we know who they are. We don’t (with the exception of the Dexter series) see many streaming series about serial killers. The heinous crimes of Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Ted Bundy may capture the morbid parts of our imaginations, but these killers do not earn the same affection or admiration that the organized gangsters do. So what’s the difference?