20 Most WTF Movie Moments Of 2019
18. The Terrible Grocery Store Fight - The Irishman
Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is arguably the best movie of the year and certainly one of the greatest films of the entire decade, a feat all the more impressive given its extremely risky digital de-aging technology employed extensively throughout the 3.5-hour crime epic.
And while the technique is terrifically effective for most of the movie, there's one scene early on where the illusion is completely shattered.
The scene sees Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) assaulting a grocery store owner for shouting at his daughter, but it's so painfully obvious we're watching a 70-something man trying to act tough, rather than a middle-aged man actually kicking some ass.
Though De Niro's face has been de-aged, his body still looks like that of an older man. While the production did hire posture coaches for De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, the trickery crumbles apart in this brief moment where De Niro is asked to get especially physical.
It doesn't help at all that Scorsese shoots the entire attack in a single wide shot, further revealing the artifice.
Had he opted for a few close-ups and some sneaky cuts, it would've been decidedly less noticeable. A bizarre blip in an otherwise masterful movie.