Irishman "I paint Houses" review.

[Averageman]

I haven't not liked a Scorsese movie until this one.
A long boring story with weird make-up and CGI effects and over three hours long. The reason this came out on Netflix and didn't premier in theater's is they would have had to wake up everyone in the audience to tell them the movie is over and it's time to go home.
If I was Jimmy Hoffa in that movie, somewhere around the 2 1/2 hour mark, I would have begged to be murdered.
Robert De Niro needs to be told he's too old for these roles anymore.
Two out of five stars.

[AndyLate]

Watched it last night, and agree 100%.

Ray Ramano was a pleasant suprise.

[6933]

Ray Ramano was a pleasant suprise.

Agree. Liked him in Everybody Loves Raymond. Interviews with him paint him as a good guy.

He pulled off a complete 180 on type of character well.

He'd be great as an evil villain.

[HMM]

I watched most of it last night and then had to finish it this morning because I was so bored...lol I expected it to be so much better...

[SteyrAUG]

I generally like Scorsese because he's a great story teller, isn't afraid to focus on small details and he completely develops the characters.

The first problem with The Irishman is Jimmy Hoffa and the Hoffa incident aren't nearly as interesting as the stories and characters in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Casino or Goodfellas. Other than the fact that nobody ever found Hoffa...who cares? It's not as interesting as mobs taking over Vegas casinos or the story of a nobody kid growing up in the mob.

Everything was there to have a great film, except for an interesting story. This is probably his worst film since Mean Streets which was another "go nowhere / nobody cares" film that was presumably about the mafia. And the big reveal at the end? Again, who cares. Hell we were told "it's always your best friend who comes for you" in Goodfellas so all of us saw that coming.

And Scorsese tried to make this film work by focusing on the DeNiro and Pesci characters with Pacino's Hoffa almost being a secondary character, but again it just wasn't enough. The first hour of the film was pretty decent showing the rise of DeNiro as a working stiff truck driver to dependable earner to mob enforcer and it was almost another version of the Henry Hill story, but then they had to introduce Hoffa and all of the character development up to that point no longer mattered because the Hoffa story just isn't very interesting.

There was also a moment at the end, when the FBI is talking to DeNiro and they pointed out "they are all gone, who are you protecting by not telling us what happened"? But it came and went and they ended with the "lonely old man" gangster who lost his family with his desire to have it all which was the last scene of The Godfather.

And then there were the hundred things that didn't matter like the "what kind of fish" conversation. The scene was actually pretty good and as enjoyable as some of the ones from Goodfellas, but in Goodfellas there was a point to everything, the fish in this movie was completely irrelevant. I'd have rather seen a conversation about the actual significance of the three rings. We only know that three people have them and they serve as some kind of identifier of "people with me" protection, but why those rings and what do they represent? We'll never know but we know a lot about the fact that there was a fish in the back seat. I was hoping it was some kind of "sleeps with the fishes" anecdote but we didn't even get that.

Seems all we got was a last hurrah for anyone who was ever in a gangster movie, it was a shame we didn't get to see Paulie Walnuts one more time.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

It was pretty good and interesting. But I felt like they didn’t feel like they could edit out any scenes with Denero or Pacino so and it being a bloated mess.

[Honu]

Yup
To long
lost story
blah overall

[CAMagnussen]

Just my .02, but I really enjoyed it. Yes, it is long, but it's the kind of thing you just have to sit back and savor and enjoy it. I am happy that Joe Pesci got to play a "boss" ....

[SteyrAUG]

Really don't think the run time was the issue. I can watch Once Upon a Time in America over and over and it's probably as long or longer.

[andre3k]

It was something to watch while I case gauged ammo. I wouldn't call it a bad movie, but I generally enjoy the mob movie genre. I did get a kick out of seeing so many J-frames in one movie.