Someone Just Fixed The Irishman's Biggest Problem

Shoddy CGI de-aging, be gone!

By Andrew Pollard /

Netflix

There’s absolutely zero doubt that Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was one of the most hotly anticipated movies of 2019.

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Headlined by Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, Scorsese’s Netflix project was dripping with legendary star power. And while some may have lambasted the 3 hour 30 minute runtime of the picture, the film stunned on a multitude of levels.

One element of the movie that maybe left a little to be desired, however, was the digital de-aging work utilised to make Messrs De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci look up to 50 years younger than their real age.

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Considering that The Irishman cost over $140 million to make, you have to imagine a good chunk of change was spent on making the film’s key trio look as authentic as possible as their story played out over half a decade.

Despite the budget afforded to this Netflix offering, the end result was somewhat of a mixed bag. Throughout The Irishman, there’s often times where the audience simply has to put some awful CGI to one side in order to appreciate the film’s story.

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What’s more embarrassing for The Irishman right now, is that a YouTube user by the name of iFake has managed to do a far better job of de-aging Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci than the team behind The Irishman’s digital work could muster up.

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According to iFake, this stunning deepfake job took only seven days and was done using completely free software called DeepFaceLab.

The Irishman was a triumph on so many levels, but you really have to question just what the digital FX team were doing to get such a so-so end result with their de-aging work.

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