The Irishman Review: 10 Ups & 1 Down

Downs...

1. The Digital De-Aging Is Sometimes Distracting

There is so little to complain about here, but if there's one single aspect of The Irishman that doesn't quite come off, it's the controversial digital de-aging applied to Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci throughout the film.

Though the effect is astonishingly impressive for the most part, the more radical de-aging effects, especially those on De Niro when he's a young man, lend a rubbery, distracting texture to the actor's face.

Thankfully Scorsese uses the effect in more subtle ways through most of the film, but there are many individual moments where a blink of the eye or mouth movement looks noticeably off, as it's clearly been tinkered with in post-production.

The film as a whole is so absurdly absorbing that you'll probably not be drawn out of it too much, but even with a stonking $159 million budget and a post-production period of over 18 months, the results are far from perfect.

With that gripe out of the way, though, here's everything Scorsese and co. get absolutely right...