Hello My Movievaures ! I hope you had a great week since my last review on Downton Abbey.

I’m back with a new article on “The Irishman”, the new Netflix’s sensation. I’ve been seing adds all around London even though this movie was released on November the 1st. It’s not surprising as first of all, it was directed and produced by none other than Martin Scorsese and secondly, have you seen the cast? Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci… Come on , who could not be attracted to that?

Something that also helped push this movie forward was the fact that it had a limited theatrical release of only 26 days, before being released on Netflix. That is, of course, good publicity  for both of them, adding to that the widespread critical acclaim from absolutely everywhere.

Let me tell you, this is no exaggeration at all. For all those who love crime films, you will be served. But attention, you will need to block 3 hours and 20 minutes of your life to watch it. No kidding, I watched it in two times as I don’t have that kind of time on the calendar.

I discovered lately, doing my research that it was based on the 2004 book I heard you paint houses by Charles Brandt. During the whole three hours, we follow Frank Sheeran (aka De Niro) a former Truck driver with Irish roots, as he becomes a hitman after meeting, by pure coincidence, Russel Bufalino (aka Pesci) and his crime family. Throughout the movie, Frank manage to climb the ranks thanks to his efficiency, trustfulness and the fact that Russel really likes him.

The whole ambiance of the movie is amazing. It is violent, yet very poetic and nostalgic of a long gone past. Everything is treated with class and melancholy. The back and forth between different times is perfectly done. It helps a lot to explain, quite a complicated story, without confusing us. It is long, I’m not going to lie, but I would not say it is too long. Every character is fascinating, in a positive or negative (mostly both at the same time) and the whole narrative, based on real events, is executed without a flaw.

In terms of role playing, of course and without any doubts, De Niro is amazing. Actually, everyone is incredibly good. However, as we follow De Niro’s character all along, I’m just astonished by his performance. But not for the reasons you may think.  Frank Sheeran character needed a very good actor, as it is the main persona but specifically because it needed to be someone who could manage to be present on the screen and at the same time, to be erased to make room for the other great characters in the story. Don’t forget, he is a hitman, working for extremely powerful public figures. And of course De Niro just manages to do this perfectly.

In short, this movie is now available on Netflix and with the Christmas break and in between huge meals you will have some time to watch this latest Scorsese masterpiece. Of course, I absolutely recommend it as it is an amazing movie of this genre. 

This is all for today my friends ! I hope you enjoyed this article on The Irishman. See you soon next week for something I’m really excited about (I will let you guess!!!)