In reality, Sheeran told his life story to author and former investigator Charles Brandt for the 2004 memoir I Heard You Paint Houses, which is the basis for the film’s screenplay by Steven Zaillian. (The book’s title is mob code for blood splattering the walls during a contract killing.) In The Irishman, which spans the mid-1940s to the early aughts, Sheeran is effectively chatting with the audience about his rise from a low-level hood to the right-hand man to labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), who he also claims to have killed in 1975. Yet the degree to which Sheeran is an unreliable narrator, perhaps even to himself, is always debatable in the film, and not just because the Hoffa case has never been officially closed. Newly edited roundtable conversation among Scorsese and actors Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, originally recorded in 2019 The film is 3hours and 30 minutes long but it never felt that long honestly. The first 2 hours went by a breeze but the 3rd hour was unapologetically slow. It felt a bit dragged on during the final hour and felt it was skipping ahead at the same time. it wasn't boring in any way but felt it could've been handled better. The CGI de-aging is so good that after a while you get confused how old the lead actors actually are. This is the best de-aging tech I've ever seen honestly.

The Irishman [CRITERION COLLECTION] (Blu-ray) [2020]

A nice touch, though, is the addition of archival footage featuring Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa and apparently used as references for the film. Sheeran’s footage (running 6-minutes) comes from recordings author Charles Brandt made for his novel, “I Heard You Paint Houses.” The excerpts showcase Sheeran talking about his alleged involvement in the Hoffa disappearance along with his general methodology behind hits (or “painting houses”). He also shows off his watch (from Hoffa) and his ring (from Russell Bufalino).Things are a bit iffy around the de-aging effects. I won’t get much into the effects, as they’ve been written about ad nauseum, other than to say I had no issue with them, but similar to how they look in the Netflix presentationthere can be a waxiness aroundfacial features when the effects are being applied. It's not always noticeable, but when it is it stands out. During World War II, Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran learned how to kill people with efficiency. Upon his return home, he tried to settle down and fought for the labor unions as a high official. He even became friends with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' president Jimmy Hoffa.

The Irishman - The Criterion Collection DVD - Zavvi UK

On the flip side, Pesci plays a diminutive man who tries to remain invisible, and he easily steals the film with an understated, wonderfully nuanced, utterly revelatory performance that's the antithesis of his loudmouth, fast-talking, over-the-top work in both GoodFellas and Casino. Reportedly, Pesci turned down the part of Russell Bufalino more than 50 times before Scorsese and De Niro finally coaxed him out of retirement. He never raises his voice, recites his lines with uncharacteristic deliberation, and proves silence is golden with an array of vivid reaction shots that speak volumes about Bufalino's ruthless nature and grasping, manipulative personality. It's a riveting turn that engenders renewed respect for the venerable Pesci and justly earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. (Pacino got one, too, by the way.) Criterion has thankfully made this a two-disc set, giving the film the entirety of the first disc. All supplemental material can be found on the second disc. The second disc, like the first one, is dual-layer, so this led me to assume there would actually be a lot of content to be found, but it barely runs over a couple of hours in the end.The cinematography is quite different from the usual modern movies we are accustomed to. It doesn't have an overabundance of Wes Anderson symmetric shots or Roger Deakins like Wide angle shots. The film was shot in a very old timey way with the camera pans and edits. The editing in the movie is great and the score is fitting. Technical aspects considered it isn't innovative or something jawdropping, but that was never supposed to be the main focus of the movie. In all the material is decent, but I guess I was expecting more for such a big title, with maybe more new material from Criterion, and I’m especially surprised there wasn’t anything about the questionable details behind Sheeran’s account of what happened to Hoffa, or anything else he confessed to. Closing The main focus for me was absolutely the acting. And why wouldn't it be with a cast like this? Al Pacino and Robert De Niro for the 1st time on screen together since Heat. Joe Pesci and De Niro since Goodfellas. Joe Pesci coming out of retirement and Martin Scorsese directing all these legends on screen together! If this doesn't get you excited for this film then I'm afraid nothing will. Frank Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa(SD, 23 minutes) - Individual archival interviews with Sheeran (interviewed by author Charles Brandt in 1999) and Hoffa (interviewed by legendary journalist David Brinkley for the documentary Inside Jimmy Hoffa) provide an intimate look at these two colorful figures. Sheeran shares details about the life of a hitman and the profession's dos and don'ts, while Hoffa describes himself as an "average, ordinary human being," classifies life as "a jungle," states his definition of ethics, and airs his beefs with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

The Irishman - Rotten Tomatoes The Irishman - Rotten Tomatoes

Table for Four: Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci"(HD, 19 minutes) - This 2019 roundtable discussion unites the four legends, who reminisce about how they met and chat about the genesis of The Irishman, the film's length, tone, and characters, the joys of working together, and the movie's unique technical challenges. Terrific rapport and some great anecdotes distinguish this jovial yet substantive dialogue. And boy have I missed Joe Pesci over the years and don't worry he's still intense as usual. And that's weird considering he is extremely toned down in this movie. If you're looking for a violent Joe Pesci like he was in Goodfellas you'll be disappointed. But if you're looking for an intimidating Pesci with a huge presence then you're in the right place. The ultimate tragedy of The Irishman is that Sheeran is incapable of singing his song of self with the kind of unblinking honesty that might lead him through regret and toward redemption. Near the end of the film, Sheeran asks that his door be left slightly ajar, a mirror of something that occurs in an earlier scene between him and Hoffa. The way Scorsese photographs Sheeran through the opening reveals a man drained of all his perceived power, and distressingly content with the unholy mess he’s left behind. Image/Sound When was the last time you saw Al Pacino give a really good performance? Well that's exactly what he does here and it feels so good to see him find his glory days. He is his usual shouty self but shines better when he tones it down and let expressions speak. Criterion also includes a 19-minute discussion between Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, the four sitting around a table (used in the film I believe) to discuss the film. At first I thought this would be the same as the In Conversation featurette that is available on Netflix, and while this uses a lot of the same material, it’s a different edit with some alternate material as well (and it runs a few minutes shorter). Nothing mind-blowing is said but it is a bit of blast to see the four just talk about the film and the experience of them all working together for what is probably one last time. It’s also fun listening to them recall what they were expecting from one another, like how Pesci was expecting Pacino to really go off the rails, as he can do, in a few scenes (“blowup” as Pesci puts it) and planning how he was going to work around that. There’s also some discussion around working with the de-aging technology.New video essay written and narrated by film critic Farran Smith Nehme about The Irishman's synthesis of Scorsese's singular formal style Anatomy of a Scene"(HD, 5 minutes) - Scorsese comments about the structure, elements, tone, and subtext of a pivotal sequence in The Irishman for this installment of a popular feature that regularly appears in the The New York Times. Expanding on that latter topic is The Evolution of Digital De-Aging, a short 13-minute featurette created by Netflix. Though not all that long I will say it does a decent job getting into how the technology works (starting with these special cameras that also get mentioned a lot in the previous two supplements) and then how they had to properly capture a variety of expressions from the actors to make sure they could replicate their performances as exact as they could. Though I could look past a lot of them there are issues around the effects in the end product, yet despite that I still found it a fascinating look into not only the technology but the art that went behind it.

The Irishman (2019) - IMDb The Irishman (2019) - IMDb

Yet, Frank couldn't walk away from his skill. He started to paint houses, kill people with a lot of blood splatter, as a contract killer. He became a hitman for the Italian-American Bufalino crime family and the only Irishman to be accepted in the Bufalino's higher echelon of trusted family members. Harvey Keitel is in the movie for a very short time but he did his job fantastically. Ray Romano was a surprising standout and I can't believe how he kept up on the same plane as some of these industry legends. He doesn't really have a bigger role and basically gets lost as the film progresses but he made the most of his screentime. And then there are the de-aging effects. Much has been written about the controversial choice to use the digital technique to allow De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci to portray younger versions of their characters and thus appear continually throughout the film. Though the technology seamlessly shaves years off the actors, its implementation occasionally takes us out of the story as we marvel at the results and look for betraying chinks in the armor. (I couldn't final any.) Pacino and Pesci fare the best because Hoffa and Bufalino are well into middle age when we meet them. Sheeran, though, is supposed to be just 35 in his earliest scenes (although the film never gets that specific), and De Niro doesn't look anywhere near that young.The Irishman isn't Scorsese's best film, but it's a film that perfectly sums up the man, his style, and what he means to the motion picture industry. It's also a movie that, in its purest sense, reminds us what movies are all about. No one except Scorsese makes 'em like this anymore, and that's a crying shame. Speaking of acting my god do they act! Robert De Niro gives his best performance in his older age with this. Joaquin Phoenix was a top contender for best Actor Oscar and I agreed with that but after watching THE IRISHMAN everything changed. Robert De Niro basically steals his Oscar like a gangsta and gives the best performance of the year so far. Old Bobby here still giving top notch actors a run for their money and the guy is 76 years old! Featurette: "The Evolution of Digital De-Aging as Seen in The Irishman"(HD, 13 minutes) - This promotional Netflix piece examines the revolutionary and controversial de-aging process that's such a major part of The Irishman. Visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman and a host of technical craftsmen from Industrial Light & Magic outline the development, execution, and philosophy of this fascinating technique. Split-screen shots show the striking transformations of the actors and myriad computer images provide glimpses of the meticulous methodology used to create this latest form of movie magic. Continuing their deal with Netflix, The Criterion Collection presents Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman on Blu-ray, delivering the film in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on the first dual-layer disc of this two-disc set. The 1080p/24hz digital encode comes from a 4K master sourced from a mix of the original 35mm negative and digital files.