Spoilers. (Duh)
In November 2019, Martin Scorsese returned to the gangster flick with The Irishman. Based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, this Netflix original chronicles the nearly 50 year timespan of Frank Sheeran’s time in the Bufalino crime family and his alleged role in Jimmy Hoffa’s Disappearance. The film reunites Scorsese with Robert De Niro as hitman Frank Sheeran. This was also a first time collaboration with Al Pacino as famed union president turned racketeer, Jimmy Hoffa. The biggest standout was Joe Pesci who came out of a 20-year retirement to play the reclusive mafia boss Russell Bufalino – exuding an uncharacteristically calm demeanor in a polar opposite to Pesci’s previous roles. It became known for its production style, using new de-aging technology turning their characters into something close to their 1990’s counterparts in the first half on the film. Seriously, I thought Joe Pesci looked just like his Home Alone days.
The Problem
However, one of The Irishman‘s biggest looming critiques lies in it’s runtime – clocking in at ~3.5 hours. It’s very rare for a movie these days to be beyond 2.5 hours and with good reason: audience patience has limits (especially if there’s low energy in the last act). One aspect that many Scorsese films have is how the story exposition, editing, and narrations felt intertwined, despite having little onscreen there’s a very fast pace to these films.
To it’s credit, the pacing of The Irishman was well done throughout the first 2/3 of the movie. However, the moment after “the party scene” was where the films pacing took a massive halt. The dread and regret that Frank feels about killing his friend Hoffa does not carry the emotional impact as it should because Franks entire plane trip and car ride scenes were so gratuitously slow that it killed the flow of the film. Even after Hoffa bites the dust, we cut to an actual slow-mo wedding, padding out the runtime even more. If you haven’t felt this was long enough yet, there is another 30 bonus minutes as we focus on Frank’s time as a frail old man. It’s like a book epilogue that went on for far too long, when a simple “appendices” section would have sufficed. Sometimes there just isn’t enough material to justify 3.5 hours. Often depending on the films pacing, even a scene that last just 5 minutes could feel like forever.
Another major criticism is that despite the films runtime there’s surprisingly little material done with Franks family, particularly his daughter Peggy. So much of the last third emphasizes Franks personal drama was him losing touch because of her knowing her father was responsible for Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance (her childhood hero/favorite “uncle”). The film’s drama wasn’t warranted because we were never given the time to feel Frank and Peggy’s connection as father and daughter so we weren’t able to feel Frank’s heartache with his daughter cutting all ties to to him. The idea of a mob enforcer doing everything he must to protect his family at the cost of his relationship to them is great drama, but so little time is dedicated to it.
Our Cut
Before you think that we’re going to spend the rest of the article bashing Scorsese for releasing one of the most artistic gangster films of all time, let us kindly point out that our complaints are in regards to the pacing and a few missed scenes. Our only beef is with the editor’s room, and we can fix all of this with a pair of scissors and minimal re-shoots.
We believe that this film would be best consumed as an episodic miniseries, with almost the exact same total runtime. All we need to do is decide where to focus each of the sub-plots and add the occasional mini-scene here and there. Like all films, there’s hours of footage to be found on the cutting room floor, and this is our appeal to get access to Scorsese’s vault with a crack team of editors.
Here’s our proposed episode list:
Episode 01: “I Heard You Paint Houses”
Overall, the first 40 minutes very much works as a self-contained episode. It does a great job establishing the core characters and how Russell Bufalino’s syndicate works. The only addition we’d want here is to see more of Frank’s life as a family man. The episode ends abruptly after Frank’s call with Hoffa with his ominous observation: “Thought I was talking to General Patton…”
Episode 02: “A Truck Got It”
Opening up with Frank’s meeting with another mobster in the spa where he’s learning about Jimmy Hoffa’s mannerisms. Again most of the material largely stays the same with the trucker strikes, union meetings, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Franks interactions with Hoffa as he goes to jail, fading out on Frank’s narrated observation: “Right then you knew it was all gonna fall apart.”
Episode 03: “The Other Tony”
This episode starts with the slo-mo assassination that was orchestrated by Crazy Joe Gallo. Crazy Joe will also have more screen time as his character stole every scene he touched – especially since he seems to have this indifference or even hostility to other Italian mobsters, preferring to recruit African-American gangs for his dirty work.
One crucial element to add is more scenes is with Frank’s daughter Peggy who’s now old enough to be played by Anna Paquin. Another main criticism we had of the film was with Paquin’s total lack of spoken dialogue or meaningful screen time. Frank often mentions how important his daughter is to him, and yet so little focus is given to her. For this change the will be a few scenes between Frank and Peggy talking to each other, not much, but just enough so we understand their relationship and divides at this stage of Frank’s life.
A key difference we would like is for a sudden switch of perspective – with Peggy doing the narration. This is an addition that wouldn’t require re-shoots, as we just need Anna Paquin sit down in a recording studio for a day or two. This wouldn’t be the first time Scorsese used multiple first-person perspectives, as he made similar narration styles for both Goodfellas and Casino.
This is also the episode where Hoffa’s release and struggles to get back his union, This was were Hoffa’s friction with mob began to escalate, especially with Tony Pro. The episode ends with Frank and Jimmy watching the Watergate scandal hearings. Jimmy’s final line should be “yeah he’s a rat, a smart rat”.
Episode 04: “Buy a Fish”
The episode starts with the party celebrating Frank’s big night. It that scene where we get the ominous “It’s what it is” line, there should also be more scenes of Peggy actually talking based on a few shots the seems to have been some with Hoffa (and maybe even some flirtation with Hoff’s stepson Chuckie) though I can’t be sure.
It was at the point where Russell orders Frank to Detroit where the film‘s pacing started to claw at you. It seems to be obsessed at showing every tedious detail from his flight to his car to the empty house and back again, all with no dialogue. Keep in mind that at this point we’re at the 2 ½ hour mark and scenes like these kills the energy the first 2/3 had. I understand the intention of this whole sequence, so we feel along with him the coming dread,
It sucks as a movie section, but as an individual episode, its highly effective. Let’s do that here.
The episode ends with Frank and Jimmy in the car in the scene before they pull over to the empty house with Frank’s face wretched with fear in his eyes, knowing what he’s about to do.
Episode 05: “Can You Leave the Door Open?”
The final episode opens Frank and Jimmy entering an empty room (a clear homage to Goodfellas) before Frank shoots Hoffa. The remaining 40 minutes would remain the same in terms of length, pacing, and editing. Peggy’s scenes would also stay the same, but now they have more emotional meaning to the audience thanks to our added scenes of Frank/Peggy’s relationship.
Then we take the slow way out. Frank is a shattered regretful man, and the Bufalino family fades out from behind bars. Roll credits.
Conclusion
The Irishman, in its original form, has earned numerous acclaims. However, like every work of art, there is always room for improvement. Should Netflix decide to re-release this film in the form of a miniseries, it wouldn’t be without precedent – Quintin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, a movie already 2 hours and 50 minutes has been re-cut into an extended series using scenes that weren’t included in the original film release. More recently, despite being released as a movie, the Snyder Cut of Justice League has a clear miniseries formula to it, complete with section titles.
In the end, Scorsese released a film that pushed the boundaries of the gangster genre – creating a truly generation-scale work through his pioneering usage of facial de-aging technology and nonlinear storytelling. We love this film so much, we just want more of it – portioned out in 5 digestible pieces. Bon Appétit – binging is optional.
