Sorry Mr P. Bradshaw, but The Irishman is definitively not Martin Scorsese’s finest film for 30 years. It is a kind of Goodfellas part 2, same narrative technique, use of soundtrack, voice-over, multiple timeline narration and flashbacks. Same actors, looking sometimes like a pantomime of themselves: making them younger by computer technology is like seeing an old man wearing a mask. Even the attempt to link political realities with the fictional story is quite superficial and does not really work, like in The Godfather part 3. Time Out review sounds more convincing: Replete with all the gangster gab a Scorsese fan could want, the director’s latest is strongest in its quieter passages, when self-reproach takes its toll.
It is indeed a movie of friendship, betrayal and remorse, it is indeed a movie made by an old man and by old stars on their glorious sunset boulevards.