The Internet Thinks Netflix's The Irishman Is Pretty Boring (2024)
Home Movies
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman finally arrived on Netflix this week. The highly-anticipated and long-in-development gangster film sees Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci reuniting for the first time since Casino and it’s also the first time Scorsese and Al Pacino have ever worked together (if you can believe it).
Ryan Beltram
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman finally arrived on Netflix this week. The highly-anticipated and long-in-development gangster film sees Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci reuniting for the first time since Casino and it’s also the first time Scorsese and Al Pacino have ever worked together (if you can believe it).
And the film is apparently living up to all the hype according to critics. With a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, folks are praising The Irishman as an epic and meditative story about mortality.
See for yourself below:
“It’s a cinematic tour de force in form and substance, representing late-career high points for director Scorsese and his lead actors Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci,” says the Toronto Star’s Peter Howell.
“There are 209 minutes in The Irishman and not one of them is wasted,” says Chris Hewitt of the Minneapolis Tribune.
Even our own Luke Parker is singing its praises as fantastic, saying the following in his review:
Handled cautiously and confidently by a pioneering troupe of filmmakers whose legacies were all bred from such mafiusu affairs, The Irishman greets the screen like an old, longed-for friend.
But as Chris Hewitt mentioned, it’s a long film. I mean, really long. And with the main protagonists all being old white guys, this isn’t a movie that’s going to appeal to the same demographic as Avengers: Endgame (which is also 3 hours, by the way).
In fact, a quick search on social media reveals all kinds of hot takes from regular audiences, and we’ve picked out just a few of them for you to browse below:
So, I didn't like "The Irishman". I can't help to compare it to Goodfellas, which I completely loved. And this one is long, slow…Boring. Please Martin, don't hate me. I still think you are the Master. pic.twitter.com/04k13ed1EN
An hour into the Irishman and have to say it’s the most over valued movie ive seen in years. Hot take alert…it’s terrible and don’t recommend. Boring. Long. Confusing. A snooze. Rating: F #DavesTomatoes
THE IRISHMAN’s main triumph – and make no mistake, it is one, especially at three-and-a-half-hours – is squeezing a bit more life out of cinema’s third-most-stultifying narrative trope i.e. old, boring Catholic men being afraid of the hell fire.
Clearly, “boring” is the operative word here. I haven’t had a chance to see the film for myself yet, but considering my favorite movie of the century so far is Zodiac, I’d say The Irishman will be right up my alley.
It makes me wonder, though, if this had been released as a miniseries rather than a feature film, would these people still feel the same way? After all, three one hour episodes are more digestible for the binge-watching generation of today. A 209 minute movie just feels like a chore even before it begins (for some).
Then again, this sounds like an old-fashioned drama made by some of the greatest filmmakers of the past 50 years and Hollywood just doesn’t make these types of movies anymore, which is why someone like Scorsese had to go to Netflix to get it produced. Steven Spielberg had a similar challenge making Lincoln seven years ago. That film was going to be at HBO before he was finally able to sell it to Disney and Fox.
The point is, there isn’t one movie that everyone loves. I had a roommate once who hated Jaws. Yes, you read that right. Film is subjective. Some people find The Irishman slow and boring, and that’s fine. I’ll form my own opinion though after I’ve seen it and then I’ll probably just move on with my life.
Sign in to vote. Amazing acting, great story lines and some twists. Loved how the story was told through the eyes of De Niro's character as he was at the end of his life. For anyone that likes gangster movies, it is worth a watch - high quality actors from across the great gangster films.
Is The Irishman a true story? Mostly. The biggest doubts came when Sheeran admitted to killing “Crazy Joe” Gallo and Jimmy Hoffa himself. However, authorities have looked extensively into both cases and have concluded that the chances of Sheeran killing both men is likely untrue.
The Irishman gives its audience so many emotions and is poignant, funny, violent, and beautiful. It is a modern-day mobster masterpiece from a master of his craft. Fresh score.
He just wanted too much money for the budget, for a movie that didn't/doesn't have mass appeal. It wasn't, given its length and very limited distribution. Here in L.A., it was in theatres for roughly four months, remaining long after it could be watched at home.
The Irishman has so much heart, from start to finish, that it's almost overwhelming (in a good way). I think this was one of the most human portrayal of these types of guys. Especially Frank. The last half just radiates pain, loss, regret, remorse, and Frank's confronting his mortality alone just really made me sad.
Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, portrayed by Robert De Niro
Sheeran was a high-ranking official in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who, shortly before his death in 2003, took credit for the death of Teamster leader Hoffa in 1975. De Niro has been involved with the making of The Irishman for 12 years.
Truth is, De Niro himself boasts only one-quarter Italian ancestry: His father, the abstract expressionist painter Robert De Niro Sr., was half Irish, and his mother, painter and poet Virginia Holton Admiral, boasted Dutch, English, French and German ancestry.
Pennsylvania vehicles do not have license plates on the front of their cars. Some cars are shown with a tag on the front bumper. Jimmy is shown being released from prison shortly after the scene when Joe Gallo is murdered. Jimmy got out of prison in 1971 whereas Gallo was killed in 1972.
As a viewer, it's hard not to be immediately taken out of the picture because De Niro's character, Frank Sheeran, is supposed to be around 35 years old in the scene. Instead, he seems more like a Madame Tussaud's figure of the actor in his prime, one that's been on display in a wax museum for 35 years.
No, the dialogue does include many profanities but not as many as Goodfellas, Casino, or The Wolf of Wall Street. But now the curses are so commonplace you don't notice anyway. Should I watch Goodfellas before I watch The Irishman? They're not connected so it's not necessary.
Al and Robert met for the first time in Manhattan through mutual friends more than 50 years ago. Their acting careers were just getting into full swing at the time but there was a special bond that formed between them right away.
It is Scorsese's second time with ten nominations for a film which did not win any Oscars behind his previous 2002 film, Gangs of New York. As other distinction it shares with 2010's True Grit and 2013's American Hustle, after the 11 for 1977's The Turning Point and 1985's The Color Purple.
The Irishman is about the tragic corruption of the Teamsters union, with Hoffa's willingness to loan money to the mob from the union's pension fund, and it reaches back to the tough, sinewy graft-and-corruption pictures of postwar American cinema, such as Robert Rossen's All the King's Men (1949) and Elia Kazan's On ...
Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is, by all accounts, a fantastic film that delves into the inner workings of American organized crime and its significant impact on the nation's politics over the course of the 20th century.
"The Irishman" is about life and death – period. There's nothing for our self-made myth at the end of Scorsese's latest – just the realization that it was all a toxic men's lie: gangster loyalty, the material success, the meaningful icons, the idea that death won't somehow be final.
Yes. According to The Irishman true story, Frank Sheeran did claim responsibility for the 1975 death of former Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa. Prior to passing away from cancer, Sheeran told his story to Charles Brandt, who detailed it in his 2004 non-fiction book I Heard You Paint Houses.
Introduction: My name is Dr. Pierre Goyette, I am a enchanting, powerful, jolly, rich, graceful, colorful, zany person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
