Netflix review round-up for ‘The Irishman’: Gangland crime pays off once again for Mob-movie boss Martin Scorsese

The premiere of “The Irishman,” which opened the New York Film Festival on September 27, was treated with the kind of respect one accords an aging Mafia don, igniting a gushing geyser of Twitter reactions for a three hour-and-a-half hour crime saga that spans several decades.

It is clear that, at age 76, Martin Scorsese is not just at the top of his game, but has given us perhaps his career-best masterpiece. It is a cinematic event that caused Oscar-winning “Goodfellas” supporting actor Joe Pesci to come out of retirement, enticed Al Pacino to do his first Scorsese film and  celebrates the director’s ninth big-screen partnership with Robert De Niro — their first since 1995’s “Casino.”

But, as Alonso Duralde notes in his review for The Wrap, Scorsese’s return to gangland “is anything but a greatest hits compilation … as a storyteller and a crafter of images, he remains as bold and provocative as ever.” That includes embracing new de-aging technology so that the stars could play themselves throughout the film and taking chances with narrative structure.

SEE All of Martin Scorsese’s 24 movies ranked worst to best

Adapted from a book about World War II veteran turned hitman Frank Sheeran (De Niro), “The Irishman” follows the rise of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) alongside the growing influence of organized crime in America as represented by Pesci’s mob kingpin Russell Bufalino. The aged killer looks back at his life as time takes its toll and the sense of loss hangs in the air.

If “Goodfellas” was a giddy kick until everything crashed down, “The Irishman” is a more thoughtful rendering of what leading a life of crime and violence does to a person. RogerEbert.com’s Matt Zoller Seitz notes the difference in Scorsese’s direction, calling it “more contemplative than his gangster movie norm (at times as meditative as his religious pictures), and which deftly shifts between eras, using dialogue and voice-over to make the time-jumps seamless.”

But what about the acting, you say? Pacino’s portrait of the notorious Teamsters Union leader, who shows up a third of the way through, earns the most glowing praise. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, who  declares the actor’s performance as “the film’s most extraordinary,” adding: “Pacino invests the fabled labor leader with a full-throttle Loud Voice Al energy — but though we may, at moments, laugh at the classic Pacino bluster, make no mistake. This is a deadly serious performance as a man of vast influence and complex loyalty.”

What about Pesci, whose last appearance in a movie was nine years ago in the barely seen “Love Ranch”? David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter proclaims, “Joe Pesci emerges from retirement to give a superbly measured performance as a don whose quiet thoughtfulness and composure don’t soften his ruthlessness; he’s the polar opposite of the lit-fuse firecrackers Pesci famously portrayed for Scorsese.”

Then there is De Niro, who looms over most of the running time. As Indiewire’s Eric Kohn observes in his write-up: “De Niro’s always at his best in the context of a Scorsese-mandated tough-guy routine, and Frank Sheeran gives the actor his most satisfying lead role in years. Sheeran appears in virtually every scene, and the story belongs to his colorful worldview the entire time. He may be an aging man telling tall tales, but that puts him in the same category as the one behind the camera. Sheeran, however, lost touch with his world long before he left it. With “The Irishman,” Scorsese proves he’s more alive than ever.”

The final graph of A.O. Scott‘s New York Times review nicely summarizes the importance of this film in Scorsese’s oeuvre: “To watch this movie, especially in its long, graceful final movement, is to feel a circle closing. This isn’t the last film Scorsese will make, or the last film anyone will make about the Mafia in its heyday, but it does arrive at a kind of resting place. Not an easy one, by any means, since what “The Irishman” looks back on is a legacy of violence and waste, of men too hard and mean to be mourned. A monument is a complicated thing. This one is big and solid — and also surprisingly, surpassingly delicate.”

Will the ecstatic notices for “The Irishman,” which is the product of digital streaming site Netflix, help the movie become the first web-based film to overcome any prejudice about its format and win a Best Picture Oscar? It will play in limited release in theaters starting on November 1 in order to qualify and will show up online on November 27.

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