The Irishman
Short description
The Irishman follows Frank Sheeran, a Second World War veteran of Irish background who earns his living as a truck driver in Pennsylvania in the mid-1950s. A chance encounter brings him into the orbit of the mobster Russell Bufalino, who gradually takes him on as a trusted associate. Before long Frank is carrying out work for the crime family, and Bufalino introduces him to the union leader Jimmy Hoffa, a man tied to organized crime. What begins as a working arrangement between Frank and Hoffa turns into a friendship lasting close to twenty years, set against the shifting alliances of postwar American organized labor and the underworld. The story is told from Frank's perspective as an old man looking back over his life, and it circles around the long-unsolved disappearance of Hoffa.
Martin Scorsese directed the film, the thirty-second of thirty-eight features listed in his filmography, arriving after Silence and before Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay, and Robert De Niro, Scorsese and Jane Rosenthal produced. De Niro plays Frank, Al Pacino plays Hoffa and Joe Pesci plays Bufalino, with Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano and Bobby Cannavale among a large credited cast of 198.
Costing about 159 million dollars, the film runs 209 minutes. On IMDb it holds 7.8 from roughly 470,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.6 from over 7,700 votes. A critics' rating of 8.8 from 468 reviews places it noticeably above those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Joe Pesci was reportedly asked to star in the film around 50 times before he agreed. According to Martin Scorsese, the number was far more than 50.
- For the role of adult Peggy, director Martin Scorsese cast Anna Paquin for her abilities in nonverbal communication. Scorsese had known the actress since working with her on Kenneth Lonergan's "Margaret" (2008). Therefore, Scorsese gave her character very few lines.
- In the case of the three main characters, each of whom was over 70, Scorsese used digital rejuvenation.
- Netflix paid $105 million to bring Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci together.
- At the 82nd minute, in the scene of the attempted assassination of Jimmy Hoffa, his son grabs the assailant from behind. And then, later in the scene, but from a different angle, the son only gets up from his seat and, after waiting a moment, attacks the killer.
- The film is based on Charles Brandt's book "I Heard You Paint Houses." In American organized crime slang, a person who paints houses is a hitman.
- For the lead role, Scorsese originally intended to cast Robert De Niro (an actor of Italian-Irish descent). However, when he first presented the project to Paramount Pictures, Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan (both of Irish origin) were considered for the same role for a short time – in case De Niro was busy with other projects, or if he was offered the role of Russell (if Pesci refused to participate). Both Neeson and Brosnan were a decade younger than De Niro, and Neeson even physically resembled Frank Sheeran (1920-2003), but Scorsese doubted he could consistently speak with the necessary accent, and convincingly. As for Brosnan, his candidacy was also considered, but no negotiations were even held with him because Pesci agreed to play Russell, and all these complications simply became unnecessary.
- Scorsese stated that after filming the scene where Al Pacino's character rises from a chair, the 78-year-old Pacino had to be asked to do a second take because it was evident how difficult it was for the actor, even though his character is only 47 years old in the script. Gary Tacon (whose name was not listed in the credits) was constantly on set, monitoring the condition of older actors playing characters much younger than themselves.
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