The Irishman: A Crushing Disappointment

[David Andrews]

It would be wickedly funny if The Irishman turned out to be the JFK of the Hoffa case, and inspired renewed investigation leading to Hoffa's grave.

I have a feeling, though, that Frank Sheeran was in a position to hear a smidgen of the truth:  Hoffa was cremated ASAP.  Some guys they wanted found, some they didn't.

As with the JFKA, though, we should ask ourselves, What organization was capable of dumping decades of false leads in the media for law enforcement to chase like wild geese?

Edited December 1, 2019 by David Andrews

[Ron Bulman]

10 hours ago, David Andrews said:

It would be wickedly funny if The Irishman turned out to be the JFK of the Hoffa case, and inspired renewed investigation leading to Hoffa's grave.

I have a feeling, though, that Frank Sheeran was in a position to hear a smidgen of the truth:  Hoffa was cremated ASAP.  Some guys they wanted found, some they didn't.

As with the JFKA, though, we should ask ourselves, What organization was capable of dumping decades of false leads in the media for law enforcement to chase like wild geese?

Mockingbird though that leads to a false lead, the CIA.  The real question is who controlled Them?  Who controlled Dulles.  Rockefellers, Dupont's, Cabot's, Lodges? 

Would Dillon have cooperated as head of the SS?  

[W. Niederhut]

21 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Mockingbird though that leads to a false lead, the CIA.  The real question is who controlled Them?  Who controlled Dulles.  Rockefellers, Dupont's, Cabot's, Lodges? 

     Not sure about the DuPonts, but "the Lowells talk only to the Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God."

      (I think the DuPonts talk to the Bushes.)

[David Andrews]

The DuPonts talk to strange men.

[Andrew Prutsok]

30 years from now, I don't see my 88-year-old self tuning in to the Irishman every time it's on commercial TV, like I do Goodfellas.

[Pat Speer]

I watched The Irishman last night. Sure enough, the opening and closing credits reveal the film to be I Heard You Paint Houses. Evidently, The Irishman is Netflix's name for the picture, not Scorsese's. 

Overall, I'd say the film is a moderate disappointment. A 7 out of 10. Pacino and Pesci were quite good, DeNiro less so. The main problem, for me, was the script. It has a number of timelines interwoven. There's the old man telling his story. And then there's the trip to a wedding, with flashbacks along the way. So, yes, it has flashbacks within flashbacks--one of my least favorite contrivances of the past few decades. It's just bad storytelling, IMO. I feel like it would have been a much better picture if the first 3/4 told the story of the trip, leading up to Hoffa's farewell, and the last 1/4 was Sheeran as an old man. Now, that would have been anti-climactic, but it would also have been more honest, because the focus of this film isn't on the action, or even on the historic sweep, but on betrayal and regret. Probably the best scene in the movie is Sheeran as an old man admitting the one thing he felt bad about--apparently the one thing he couldn't justify--and it wasn't a killing, it was a lie. I think that was what Scorcese was getting at--that the downfall of the Mafia--and indeed Western Civilization--is not the codes of honor, and brutality, as much as it is the dishonesty at the root of it. These men were Catholics. Family men. And yet they would cheat and kill and lie for money, and tell themselves it was for their family. When it actually destroyed their families. 

At first I was disappointed in the ending. It was such a whatever... But in retrospect, I find it kind of haunting--a brutal killer who at the end is afraid to have his door shut, to be alone with himself. Ironic. And sad.

 

P.S. From a JFK researcher viewpoint, the movie is a win. It suggests Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. It's not the first movie to do so, but the news media has taken such a hard turn to "nothing to see here" that every bit helps, IMO. 

Edited December 2, 2019 by Pat Speer

[Kirk Gallaway]

I check out my netflix on the average of once a month, and sure enough last night, I see the Irishman.

 From what I gathered Doug liked it but thought it was long, Joe found it Scorsese mob repetitive and violent, and Jim was "crushed".

I don't why Jim writes these reviews . Nobody goes to these movies expecting pinpoint historical accuracy or expects to be taught something valuable. It's a movie.

 

But I had a complete different reaction. Going in, I thought"Good Fellows" was a masterpiece.Casino was good but the mold was already set with "Good Fellows".

 

For me, The idea that Scorsese was going to do this kind of movie again and add Pacino was to me sort of a forced "last hurrah" for the baby boomers, of which I'm one.

 

It leads you through the same antics as the other movies, and the same intricate rivalries and comraderies, portrayed by big box office actors. I liked Pesci, (though I'm not sure when they were making him look younger) and Pacino. There's no novelty for me seeing De Niro do this range of acting. Which doesn't mean he doesn't do it well.  I was expecting more violence.

 

At the end, I saw it in part as Sorsese  making an small act of redemption for all the mafia violence films he made. Because although the  main characters in his earlier works do often get their justice in the end, by either getting whacked, dying a violent death,  or going to jail. Often when the main characters die in such movies, we are not really left with a sense of legacy. There's never really been an idea in Scorsese movies that there is a sad legacy that these people leave, and they  have to live with the consequences of what they did for the remainder of their lives.

And as Pat points out very well, at the end, he's left with the fact that he betrayed the only  truth he ever really held.

Nothing to write home about, but enough to write about in an online forum.

 

[Douglas Caddy]

The Remarkable Power of “The Irishman”

 

https://www.aier.org/article/the-remarkable-power-of-the-irishman/

[David Andrews]

More uncrushed voices heard from:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/03/the-irishman-oscars-race-national-board-of-review-win

[Douglas Caddy]

The Walnut Creek mob hit ordered in 'The Irishman' really happened

By Katie Dowd, SFGATE

Updated 7:34 am PST, Tuesday, December 3, 2019

 

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/irishman-bufalino-true-story-mob-hit-walnut-creek-14875864.php?utm_campaign=CMS+Sharing+Tools+(Desktop)&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&fbclid=IwAR2FOn-7fugLep74K32Br3dL7GOgmmGwcQf3aPmn1FV_ETAaNWfDFo9BF28

 

Full Disclosure: I lived in Walnut Creek in the early 1950's when I attended high school. Upon on the advice of my attorney (me) I can state without hesitation that I have no recollection of knowing any members of the Mob at the time. America was a different country then. We had a war hero as President not a draft dodger/traitor like we do today. Members of my breakfast club at McDonald's these days who are about my age agree that we lived in the best of times and will have few regrets when we cross over to the other side where we don't expect to see Hoffa or any Mobsters.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Douglas Caddy

[Ron Ecker]

What would really make this movie a crushing disappointment would be if it showed Hoffa's body being crushed in a car in a junkyard.

We all know that his body is buried in the end zone at Giants Stadium. (Touchdown!)

 

 

 

[Dennis Berube]

21 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Nobody goes to these movies expecting pinpoint historical accuracy or expects to be taught something valuable. It's a movie.

So wrong Kirk, so so wrong. Oliver stones movie literally created an act of congress and reinvigorated the entire populace into questioning everything since 1963. Thats because all of those people who saw the ending thought it was something valuable.

Spielberg, Hanks, Clooney and scorcese cant put anything close to that on their resume and are apparently too scared to try.

I have to disagree with Pat on its jfk value as well. Its 2019, just saying it wasnt oswald isnt enough. It was a coup, the de facto end of the US republic and going with the mob angle is another step backwards. The jfk takeaway in 2019 should be that intelligence agencies aren’t compatible with democracy, at least in their current form. Thats the crushing disappointment of this movie to me. Nevermind that the books author was an obvious opportunist whos story changed more than Madeleine browns.

 

 

 

[David Andrews]

8 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

The Walnut Creek mob hit ordered in 'The Irishman' really happened

By Katie Dowd, SFGATE

Updated 7:34 am PST, Tuesday, December 3, 2019

 

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/irishman-bufalino-true-story-mob-hit-walnut-creek-14875864.php?utm_campaign=CMS+Sharing+Tools+(Desktop)&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&fbclid=IwAR2FOn-7fugLep74K32Br3dL7GOgmmGwcQf3aPmn1FV_ETAaNWfDFo9BF28

 

Full Disclosure: I lived in Walnut Creek in the early 1950's when I attended high school. Upon on the advice of my attorney (me) I can state without hesitation that I have no recollection of knowing any members of the Mob at the time. America was a different country then. We had a war hero as President not a draft dodger/traitor like we do today. Members of my breakfast club at McDonald's these days who are about my age agree that we lived in the best of times and will have few regrets when we cross over to the other side where we don't expect to see Hoffa or any Mobsters.

"at the time" 😎

[James DiEugenio]

KG: I don't why Jim writes these reviews . Nobody goes to these movies expecting pinpoint historical accuracy or expects to be taught something valuable. It's a movie.

Maybe because people read them?  And refer to them.  And they thank me for writing them?  

As for it being only a movie:  well maybe KIrk missed it, but I was the only reviewer who did a double review: that is I reviewed the book and the film.  The book is non fiction, therefore its supposed to be true.  After a long and detailed analysis, referring to several other sources, I came to conclude that it was probably not accurate in its major tenets.  In fact, I came to conclude the contrary. Sheeran was most likely a con artist.

The problem with that is that Brandt was dealing with quite serious subjects:  the Bay of Pigs, the murder of JFK, the murder of Hoffa etc.   When you base a film on what is supposedly a book of non fiction, then you owe it to yourself, and your viewers, to do your homework.  Robert De Niro was warned in advance that Sheeran was not kosher.  And there are indications in Brandt's book this was the case. To ignore all of that and then to say that somehow Jimmy Hoffa and the Mob killed Kennedy, and Sheeran killed Hoffa, and to discount the truly key matters in the book that I noted he did, to me that is not leveling with the viewer.  When I do my reviews, I try and also do my homework.  I don't insult the reader's intelligence or waste his time by giving him ignorant pablum.  Which is what much of American film criticism has come to these days. I try and inform the reader about  facts he was likely not aware of in order to judge what the film he saw was really about.  I also try and elevate his taste by evaluating the aesthetic quality of the work in front of him. Which is why I compared Pacino's bloviating performance with the riveting one Jack Nicholson gave in that role.

See Kirk, some people do want to be challenged and educated by reviews.  They don't consider films an opportunity to eat popcorn and drink soda.  As many people believed e.g. Dwight Masdonald for example, films can be an extraordinary artistic medium, incorporating acting, music, sound, editing, visuals, motion, mise en scene etc into one unique experience.  When its done the right way, with people who know what they are doing, on a worthy subject, you can get pictures as memorable and as rewarding as Lawrence of Arabia. A pretty accurate rendition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom.  To me that film is even better than the book, since the near flawless form its presented in elevates the source material into an original aesthetic and dramatic experience.  The function of good criticism, like that practiced by Macdonald, was to explain why something like David Lean's film was a classic.  And why The Irishman is pretty much a piece of inflated and expensive junk.

Edited December 4, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Ecker]

17 minutes ago, Dennis Berube said:

It was a coup, the de facto end of the US republic and going with the mob angle is another step backwards.

 

That's basically true, and the 1963 coup makes a sick joke of all the moaning and groaning in the MSM today about what Donald Trump is doing to our "republic" with his abuse of power etc. It makes the MSM more contemptible than ever.

The republic became terminally ill in 1963, with no one with any power to do it trying to save it. Now Trump is trying to beat it to death while the Republicans (ironically named) stand by and watch.

If Trump gets reelected amid the ruins in 2020, it could very well be the last meaningful presidential election in America. Any elections that follow will just be charades that keep the Trumps in power. 

No, wait, this couldn't happen in America!