It may be three and a half hours long, but Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is far from boring. The gangster drama from Martin Scorsese is based on the possibly true story of Frank Sheeran, a man who claims to have been a prolific hitman for the Bufalino crime family and the killer of infamous union boss Jimmy Hoffa. For this epic story of violence, regret, and the perils of a life lived in crime, Scorsese spared no expense: An official budget of $159 million; a 209-minute running time; extensive CGI de-aging technology to follow the actors over a 50+ year story; and an all-star cast. The film has received near-universal critical acclaim, with some already proclaiming The Irishman to be one of Scorsese’s all-time best films. But many audience members checking out the film from the comfort of their own homes have not been quite as enthused by what The Irishman has to offer.
As is befitting a new film by an undisputed legend (as well as Scorsese’s recent conversations about Marvel movies), The Irishman has inspired many a fervent conversation. Also typical with any piece of entertainment universally adored by critics, there seems to be a gap separating those reviews from the thoughts of general audiences. That’s mostly bypassed The Irishman, which has an audience rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the critical score of 96%. Take to Twitter, however, and it doesn’t take long to find dissenting voices. As of the writing of this article, if you search for The Irishman on Twitter, the first suggestion is "The Irishman boring". Grievances over the film’s length are, as expected for a three and a half hours long story, plentiful, as are complaints of its gentler pacing, especially in comparison to the often fast and furious pacing of Scorsese’s other gangster movies. But the thing is, The Irishman is anything but boring.
The Irishman is the kind of film that could only have been made by Scorsese. It’s close to metatextual in how it fits into his 50-plus years long career and the indelible impression he’s left on American cinema. This is the necessary culmination of decades of redefining the gangster movie to the point where half of Hollywood has tried desperately to copy you. Whereas Goodfellas showed the obvious allure of the mob world and Casino delved into its ultra-violence, The Irishman is all about the mundane ennui of a life spent immersed in inescapable brutality. There is zero glamour in this world, one where old men speak in needlessly cryptic riddles to one another about hits and bribery to the point where nobody even seems to know what they’re talking about anymore. The violence shown is not brash or giddy in the way Scorsese’s eye often captures, but rather it’s the messy side-effect of a day job that will ultimately leave its protagonist empty and lonely. For every person who saw a Scorsese movie and decided they always wanted to be a gangster, The Irishman is the much-needed antidote.
Complaints about the length of The Irishman are somewhat strange given that most modern blockbusters easily pass 140-minute running times these days and Netflix viewers will happily binge 13 hours of TV in one go. Scorsese is no stranger to a long movie either. What seems to have tripped up most people with The Irishman is its deliberately languid pacing. Gone are the frantic, quick cuts of Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street that throw the audience face-first into the freneticism of these fascinating yet deeply toxic worlds. Instead, this is a movie that deliberately takes its time, showing the tiring slog of these men’s lives. Their life choices haven’t thrilled them or even brought them much happiness, and that’s conveyed through the slowness of the narrative - and slow certainly doesn't equal boring.
The Irishman is a film that demands its audiences to actively pay attention to the creative decisions it made, and given how often Netflix’s own marketing seems to encourage that viewers lazily binge-watch anything and everything, it’s not a surprise to see some fans find this a strange alternate streaming experience. Even if 209 minutes feels too long, give The Irishman the time it deserves and commit to what it has to offer (but feel free to take a bathroom break now and then). It’s worth it.