Today I saw the film The Irishman which is a new gangster film by Martin Scorsese. It has a limited theatrical run in select theaters in certain locations, and then its going to be on Netflix in a couple of weeks from now. Major theater chains wouldn't distribute it because they didn't like that Netflix's terms would have been to give it less than 3 months in theaters before it would appear on Netflix. Theaters wanted a 3 month exclusivity window and Netflix said no.

The film about a hitman for the mafia who spent some years of his life working with Jimmy Hoffa.

Robert DeNiro plays the hitman and Al Pacino plays Hoffa.

Joe Pesci plays a mob boss who mentors and employs the DeNiro character.

The film advertises Harvey Keitel as a star too, but I felt scammed by that after having seen it, since Keitel is only in it for about two brief scenes or so. It's almost like he just has a cameo. Keitel did an amazing job in the one scene where he gets some lines, but there was way too little screen-time for him.

I think this Irishman film is not as good as The Godfather, or GoodFellas, or Casino, but it's still quite good.

The acting from DeNiro, and Pacino, and especially Pesci, was amazing. The other miscellaneous gangster characters also have their actors give great performances too, using the same template as are in those other films I'm named.

DeNiro plays his character in a similar way to what he did in GoodFellas and Casino, but he also makes his Irishman character be somewhat aloof as an order-taker/soldier for the mob who doesn't quite understand how the schemes of his bosses work (whereas in the GoodFellas and Casino films, the DeNiro character is more of a leader who has full knowledge of what is going on).

Joe Pesci gave the best performance and had the best character in the whole film, I think. In the Irishman, the Pesci character isn't a psycho, like the Pesci characters are in GoodFellas and Casino. But the Irishman Pesci character is ruthless in a different kind of way, as he pulls the strings of the gangsters who he commands. I was blown away at how great Pesci was. He's still an outstanding actor!

And Pesci also makes you feel how his character truly cares about the DeNiro character the kids of the DeNiro character; it's not just business for Pesci's character (even though it usually is just business in gangster films).

I would have loved if the whole film was mainly about the Pesci character instead of the DeNiro character.

Things I didn't like about the film:

1) a lot of the gangster characters only appear on-screen once in the whole film, and then Scorsese keeps putting up a blurb of white text that says their name and what I presume is the the real-life historical thing that happened to cause their death (i.e. "shot in the face 7 times") or something like that. These intrusive text blurbs probably appear dozens of times throughout the film. I found them to be tedious. And it made the lack of any development for those characters all the more obvious, since you almost never learn anything more about them within the film itself, besides what the few lines of text blurbs say.

2) The film spends a lot of time showing the family members of the DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino characters...but for the most part, the family members are given no depth and don't feel like they are authentic people.

Tons of the screen-time spent on them is wasted, like for example, many scenes were the Pesci character's wife keeps wanting to take a smoke break while they are driving. I have no idea why Scorsese wasted so much time putting that stuff into the film.

I think he either should have cut out the family members from the film, or else if he was going to give them so much screen-time, then he should have used it to develop them (which he didn't).

3) The violence in Irishman generally feels a lot more low-key and therefore less impactful & shocking than it was in GoodFellas and Casino. That is not a good thing IMO! And also one of the key deaths takes place mostly off-screen, which I found to be very disappointing and unfulfilling. I think that scene would have been way better if it was on-screen & graphic, like it probably would have been if this was GoodFellas or Casino.

Well, I guess that sums up what I wanted to say.

Have you seen the Irishman? If so, what do you think of it? What do you think of my analyses of it? How do you think it holds up vs. The Godfather, GoodFellas, and Casino (the three best gangster films ever made, and latter two which are also from Scorsese).

If you haven't seen it yet, then are you going to see it (either in theaters or on Netflix)?

I heard about the film/theater owner groups trying to act like weasels with 90 day exclusivity agreements. They are slowly(and sadly for some who like them) causing themselves to die off with sucb practices and others.

Heck, Netflix offered(iirc) around 45 days instead of 90 when the theaters said 60 was the lowest they could go, and the theater owners refused and by doing so lost out on revenue.

As for the film...it sounds good and I might check it out if I have time in the future.I haven't seen it yet, but I might some day....also I read some of your analysis but I skipped most of it to avoid spoiling it for me. You seemed to do a good job at offering your take, at any rate.

I see what you are saying. I did try not to put any spoilers in the OP, although I can see how even basic ingredients of the film can be considered spoilers in some ways. I tried to stick only talking about the kinds of basic things that appear in professional reviews. Although those aren't perfect either.

Yesterday I read a professional review which spoiled the ending of the film by citing an interview of what the real-life guy who the film is about (as played by DeNiro) said happened in his life.

You did a good job avoiding major spoilers, it's just that I am VERY picky about any sort of spoilers for some things. :)Some guy was talking in a game store or some such and spoiled the ending to GOW 3 for me.....so I know how that goes.