His latest film could have been just another mafia movie, but his use of CGI, streaming services and his bold approach to runtime pushes cinema forwardsThe Irishman begins with Robert De Niro´s veteran mafia hitman rambling from a wheelchair in an old people´s home - the last, befuddled survivor of a forgotten era. It would be so easy to view Martin Scorsese in a similar light. First there were his cranky-old-man comments about not considering Marvel movies to be `cinema`. Now comes The Irishman itself, which on superficial inspection looks like a three-and-a-half-hour wallow in the 76-year-old film-maker´s comfort zone, and doesn´t come close to passing the Bechdel Test.If Scorsese was on Mastermind, his specialist subject would surely be `male Italian-American criminality of the late 20th century`. In theme and cast (De Niro, Pesci, Pacino, Keitel), The Irishman is of a piece with previous Scorsese works, from Mean Streets to Goodfellas to Casino - although the ages of the performers does add an elegiac note to proceedings this time. Continue reading...
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