The Irishman (2019) Review

rating: ****

the story: An aging Frank Sheeran reflects on his life highlighted, among other things, by a close association with Jimmy Hoffa.

review: Martin Scorsese ignited a firestorm of controversy when he lamented the current state of filmmaking while releasing The Irishman, which was done on the streaming platform Netflix rather than exclusively in theaters.  Scorsese is a filmmaking master, so the fact that he had to use Netflix at all is either high praise for Netflix or faint praise, and an indictment of current pop culture's appreciation for talent on the level of Scorsese.  Much of the initial reception of The Irishman centered either on this or the de-aging CGI work stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino experience to tell the stories of Sheeran and Hoffa.

To get that other point out of the way, the de-aging only matters if you really think it has to.  Because it shouldn't.  It should have no relevance to your appreciation of the results.

The results of the film itself have often been described as an elegiac response to Scorsese's career, often exploring the life of mob figures, in pop culture most famously in Goodfellas, which for me has long been the least interesting of his films, the most obvious, least nuanced, which should otherwise not be words associated with a filmmaker of his caliber.

It's a long film, but it doesn't really feel like it is.  I had previously read the book upon which it's based, which is sometimes itself considered somewhat a work of fiction, as it ultimately turns on whether or not you believe Sheeran's confessions, about being responsible for Hoffa's disappearance (by being his assassin) or even the suggestion that he played a role in JFK's assassination (by helping ship the weapons responsible).  The latter is heavily downplayed in the movie, but the Hoffa angle is clearly the focus, other than Sheeran's relationship with Russell Bufalino, a mob figure who ages along with him, whose aging is itself the most visible element of the film's true message, a meditation on aging, on the rare instance of Hollywood allowing the elderly to be the point of a drama without necessary fixating on the inevitable death, but rather the decline itself.

Bufalino is played by Joe Pesci, a familiar figure from the Scorsese catalog, playing well against type as a restrained figure, possibly because he's the one most reflecting that element, a figure being chauffeured on his final rounds in a road trip that helps begin the film's journey.  Some critics have focused on the significant lingering shots that begin and end the film, but I think it's inside the car with Pesci, Robert De Niro, and the actresses playing their wives, as Pesci asserts his no-smoking policy that's just as promptly ignored, and Pesci doesn't pitch his usual fit...

De Niro is the star, and oddly, when we see him at his oldest he looks his least convincing.  I don't even understand how that's possible.  He's the obvious target for criticizing the de-aging effects, but the scene where his younger self stomps someone, which some say looks least convincing, is most important as the moment Sheeran's daughter realizes she wants nothing to do with him.  

Pacino doesn't sell Jimmy Hoffa so much as deliver another Al Pacino performance, and since it's been so long since we've gotten one of those, who's to really argue about this?  The idea of Hoffa, now, means the mystery of the disappearance, which is what the film features, because his image as the ultimate union boss is no longer relevant.  

Arguably, the real draw here is of course getting to see De Niro and Pacino act together.  After decades of being described as the best actors of their generation, they shared the screen in Heat, which ended up being better known for the wide ensemble around them, and then Righteous Kill, which no one counts.  Here it's almost all De Niro and Pacino, delivering their signature performances.

Which is not to say there isn't plenty of talent around them.  Besides Pesci there's Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel (another Scorsese veteran, his De Niro before De Niro), Jesse Plemons, and Jack Huston, playing and sounding like Bobby Kennedy but otherwise recognizable.  Someday he'll be considered a major selling point all his own, given the opportunities.  

So much of the past fifty years has been chasing The Godfather, and arguably Scorsese has been doing exactly that for much of his career, and The Irishman is probably the closest he'll ever come, with a story that follows real events and therefore carrying more than just great acting and mob intrigue, and on that score weighing nicely against the iconic Marlon Brando performance, the breakthrough Pacino.  

It's too early to say for certain.  But it's another great film from Scorsese.  Not his best.  For me those are Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Departed, Silence.  But darn close.  In the conversation.  The one that matters.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

rating: ****

the story: A former TV star's bid for career resurrection intertwines with the life of Sharon Tate.

review: A week after seeing it I'm still processing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.  Sometimes I'm instantly in love with a Quentin Tarantino film (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), other times I'm not sure how devoted I'll be (Jackie Brown, Hateful Eight, even Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs).  The two-volume Kill Bill is sort of in-between, although the second one is closer to instant love.

But of all his movies, Once Upon...is probably closest to Jackie Brown, which was Tarantino's first taste of languid, of just letting his filmmaking speak for itself rather than splashy violence (Reservoir Dogs) or splashy stars (Pulp Fiction) do the talking (along with the characters, naturally).  Once Upon takes its tone from Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate, who today is best known for being horribly murdered at the behest of Charles Manson.  Tarantino has stated that he wanted Tate to exist apart from that narrative.  In fact, Once Upon... becomes his second film, after Inglourious Basterds, to deliberately rewrite history, in allowing Tate to avoid her fate, and it's in that regard that the film reaches its highest note and possibly the note on which the entire movie will ultimately be judged.

But Robbie's Tate isn't really the star of the movie.  That honor falls to Leonardo DiCaprio, who's featured as the former TV star, a fictional character, who has been struggling to find meaningful roles.  His TV show was a western, and by the time we catch up with him he's being cast in his latest guest spot in another one, and as Tarantino presents it the material becomes a movie-within-a-movie, something I wish he'd done with Django Unchained (as a flashback-of-sorts for the Brunhilda myth), which for some viewers might be a needless tangent, but it helps put the character in context, how he views himself, and thus how everything would turn out for all the characters if we followed their narratives equally.  Metaphorically, you understand.

Just below DiCaprio is Brad Pitt playing his former stunt double, now personal assistant.  After, oh, about a decade of sliding toward irrelevance and being best known for his relationship with Angelina Jolie, Pitt's performance in Once Upon... is almost akin to Travolta in Pulp Fiction, a giant reminder of his considerable talents, the full impact of his charismatic screen presence.  He's got the best scene, too, a fight with Bruce Lee that becomes better as it builds, which is interesting for Tarantino, who usually accomplishes the bulk of his work with words.  It's another subtle evolution of his filmmaking mastery.

Among the supporting players are Al Pacino (allowing himself a rare character role), Bruce Dern, and Kurt Russell, who's probably in the best sweet spot of his career (previewed, in some ways, by Death Proof, with a great spotlight in Hateful Eight).

But the ending is the real selling point.  As I said, Tarantino allows Sharon Tate to cheat fate.  In doing so, he probably allows Tate's husband, at the time of her death, Roman Polanski a reboot as well.  Polanski at one time was known simply as a brilliant director.  He was just coming off his breakthrough film, Rosemary's Baby, at the time, and would later direct Chinatown and The Pianist, but his career was forever tarnished by a rape charge he chose exile from America to avoid prosecution over.  Is it reasonable to assume Tate's death played a role in the sequence of events that led to this fate?  Is Tarantino saving two lives here?  That's how I choose to view it, anyway.

Giving Tate the focus, rather than Charles Manson, is itself a noteworthy choice on Tarantino's part.  It takes the power away from Manson, who entered virtual cultural immortality as the result of ordering Tate's murder, and Tate herself became just a name.  In effect, Tarantino is addressing two major sins, and offering a chance at correction, that've haunted Hollywood for fifty years, which is noteworthy in and of itself at a time when Hollywood has been playing a moral authority.  Is it a direct criticism?  Will Hollywood even care, come the Oscars next year, or merely be flattered, as it tends to be, when presented as subject matter?  If it gives Tarantino his long-deserved Academy recognition, all the better.

Perhaps, in time, I'll better understand how much I appreciate this one.  For now I'll be a little cautious.  But like all Tarantino's movies, it won't be easy to forget.  Not by a long shot.  Yeah....

Heat (1995)

rating: ****

the story: An epic showdown between cop and criminal.

review: Long billed as the long-awaited pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino onscreen together (they previously both appeared in Godfather Part II, but in separate sequences), Heat is actually an embarrassment of riches, in hindsight, full of actors who would populate the big and small screens for years to come.  And it's arguably the predecessor to The Dark Knight in terms of action movies.

Here's the talent assembled for Heat: De Niro, Pacino.  Val Kilmer and Natalie Portman.  Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd.  Jon Voight (who like Kilmer sports long hair for the movie).  Tom Sizemore.  Mykelti Williamson, who the year previous had his breakthrough appearance as Bubba in Forrest Gump, and would later play another cop in the underappreciated TV gem Boomtown.  Dennis Haysbert, years before playing a president in 24, or helping us be in good hands with All-State.  Danny Trejo.  William Fichtner, who still has yet to be properly noticed.  Wes Studi, Hank Azaria, Xander Berkeley (who also later appeared in 24).  And Jeremy Piven, another talent who deserves much greater recognition for his screen presence.

And they're all here!  Just spending the time enjoying them make their appearances, large and small, is worth watching this one.

Of course, it circles back to De Niro and Pacino.  De Niro is in subdued mode, not the outsize gangster he is in Scorsese movies but more as he appears in Tarantino's Jackie Brown, two years later.  Pacino, as he often does, chews a lot of scenery, but when it counts, he matches De Niro's mood, and it's everything you always heard Heat was.  These are screen giants, and their epic showdown is exactly what it was always supposed to be.

But Michael Mann, who made his name in television, including Miami Vice (which he later adapted to the big screen in the same mold as Heat), isn't merely interested in acting.  He's got a big action movie in mind, in the kind of scope he basically perfects, in the years before superheroes came to dominate the genre, in the years after the '80s saw them dominated by action stars.  This is an experience that crosses all boundaries. 

And yeah, it's exactly the kind of experience that Christopher Nolan later duplicated for The Dark Knight.  The hype and magnetism of Heath Ledger's Joker was what everyone talks about, but Nolan was the first director since Mann to nail this kind of action movie.  And at its heart, Dark Knight is more this kind of action movie than it is a superhero movie, and I think that's what Nolan realized, and was going for, and what audiences liked so much about it, too. 

If Heat doesn't get talked about enough these days as a milestone of the '90s, and filmmaking in general, it's because it's remembered now for the De Niro/Pacino pairing, and the fact that after this their careers were never quite the same again.  De Niro reached a dramatic peak, and went in the direction of comedy, and Pacino became dismissed for what's since become best illustrated by Nicolas Cage, the idea that acting style is suddenly a crime, where the idea of movie stars has slipped by the wayside.  Which is ironic, as the dawn of the modern blockbuster begins with a movie where the acting is, distractedly, the whole point, by observers who can't quite keep the whole scope of the experience in mind.