The Irishman Review: 10 Ups & 1 Down

Ups...

10. It's Basically The Anti-Goodfellas

It would've been easy for Scorsese to simply play the hits and give his fans another riff on the Goodfellas formula, but to his enormous credit, The Irishman is in many ways a polar opposite reflection of his 1990 mob classic.

Though The Irishman obviously owes a lot of its style and tonal identity to Goodfellas, it provides a far less romantic depiction of mob life, veering away from the slick cool that helped that movie become so iconic.

The Irishman is far less eager to portray the mobster life as sexy and exciting, focusing instead on how it dirties the souls of those involved and, in turn, rots entire cities and civilisations.

The passage of time is a key theme in the movie, with countless characters being introduced to us along with text indicating their later time and method of death, and by the time the end credits finally roll, it's tough to imagine anyone viewing the line of work in a flippant or favourable context.

As two sides of the same coin, Goodfellas and The Irishman would make one hell of a double bill - a damn long one, too.