Did you know Jimmy Hoffa could be hiding in this blog, 3.5 readers? That’s right. He could be somewhere in this website all along and no one would know because only 3.5 people ever read this damn thing.
BQB here with a review.
5 years. 5 long…actually not so long years it took me before I got around to watching this flick. If you told me as a young man I’d wait five years to watch a Scorcese movie starring Pacino and DeNiro, I’d say your out of your mind, but at three and a half hours, who has that kind of time?
Finally, I decided I would never have that long to devote to a movie in one sitting (I nearly wanted to write a stern complaint letter to Marty when I sat down for what I thought would be two hours of Flower Moon only to find I’d unwittingly signed up for a four hour marathon), I set out to watch this movie in 10-20 minute bites over the course of a week, with a watch of the final hour this weekend.
Does it lend as much gravitas to watch it in bits? Maybe not but that’s the only way I could ever get through this thing. Marty is a light touch with the editing scissors in his old age.
But while the more recent Flower Moon could have been easily reduced by half to two hours, this film does contain a lot of interesting snippets of history intermixed with theories (of the conspiracy variety?) vis a vis the death of the infamous union leader.
To be fair, Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) did a lot of good in his life, promoting the union movement and convincing companies to put worker safety, retirement, benefits and futures ahead of bottomlines. But there was also some bad, as he did go to jail for fraud.
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
But the movie isn’t so much about Hoffa as the man this flick alleges did him in. Now, I should say up front, no one really knows who killed Hoffa. Technically, no one knows for sure that he died. Officially, we just know he went missing in 1975 and was legally declared dead in 1982 after not being seen for 7 years.
After years of going to war with the Kennedys and sparring with various mafiosos, could he have decided to just run off to the mountains and live out the remainder of his days? Sure, but probably not. He had a pesky habit of publicly challenging his enemies to bring it on and he ain’t goin’ nowhere so he doesn’t really fit the profile of a runner.
So chances are, he was probably forced to take an eternal dirtnap by one goon or another. Do we know that goon whodunnit was Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro)? No, so we have to keep that in mind as we watch this long, long absurdly long film.
The tale is an epic, spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s. Sheeran is a young truck driver with a wife and family, looking to make a little extra money on the side when mobster Russell Buffalino (Joe Pesci) recruits him to do odd illicit jobs. Sheeran eventually moves up the food chain, becomes a close friend of Jimmy Hoffa, graduates from hitman to union leader himself but keeps doing wetwork on the side. I want to say allegedly because WTF do I know but hey, that’s what this movie says, not me, so don’t come after me, Sheeran Estate.
Sheeran is eventually torn between his two close friends, each who had a part in making him a success (or at least rich – if you call being a mobster goon a success). In his old age, Hoffa has stepped on too many toes and many a wiseguy wants him to go, with Russell being the main advocate for his removal (on ice). But Hoffa wants to stay and has the ultimate IDGAF attitude, threats be damned.
Alas, Sheeran will have to make a decision. And I guess I already told you what decision he made (my lawyer says I have to tell you according to this movie) so you don’t have to watch it for three and a half hours, unless you want to. Hey I did say spoiler alert.
The good? I have to hand it to DeNiro and Pacino. Both are men of advanced age yet they still got it. Pesci’s not bad either. You learn a lot about history as Sheeran is presented as sort of the Forrest Gump of the mafia – his alleged hits (hey, I said alleged!) turn the course of many a historical tide while he goes largely unnoticed, which I guess, if you’re a mafioso trying to stay out of a can, is a good thing.
BONUS: Sopranos fans will be happy to see many of the old gang back at it. Forgive me for forgetting the actors names, but I’ll just refer to them by their Sopranos characters – Charmaine, Beansie, Eugene Pontecorvo, Gerry “The Hairdo” Torciano. Apparently, there were some more, so forgive me for not getting to them all and there were some who didn’t make it to the screen but were involved behind the scenes.
Plus if you like Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray Romano has a pretty prominent role.
Also, there are a lot of big name actors who are in it just in supporting roles. For example, Anna Paquin of Sookie Stackhouse fame plays Sheeran’s perpetually shy daughter, and she barely says a word because her character is perpetually shy.
The bad? Even with all the de-aging techniques, from CGI to makeup, it’s very difficult to suspend disbelief and see a 75 year old DeNiro as a young family man early in the film. I’m not sure what could have been done differently. Younger actors could have been cast but we would have been robbed of Pacino and DeNiro starring together. And the challenge of the film is that it covers a 50, almost 60 year period, so even the younger actors are outfitted in bald caps and gray wigs by the end. There was probably no way really to avoid aging and/or de-aging the talent. To that end, the film deserves a lot of credit in the make-up department.
Also, Pacino and DeNiro are two of the most famous Italian-American actors of all time, but they are playing Irish characters. That’s fine by me. I don’t really care about the cultural appropriation hullabaloo, but there are times when Pacino is playing Hoffa, saying things like “I don’t care if those guineas come and get me” and “Don’t Italians name their kids anything but Tony?” that seems silly for one of Hollywood’s most famous Italians to be saying.
If you like history, you’ll love this movie. My only concern is that, you know, no one really knows for sure who killed Hoffa except Hoffa and whoever killed Hoffa. Hoffa obviously can’t tell us and at this late stage, whoever killed Hoffa is probably gone too, whacked by Father Time if his mafia friends and/or rivals didn’t get him (or her I hate to be sexist but it was most likely a him). So it’s an awfully big claim to say that Sheeran killed Hoffa and movies have a tendency to become fact in the minds of the masses and yet how can we ever really know for sure? If he didn’t do it, then this movie is pretty slanderous.
But I suppose we’ll never know for sure what happened and whodunnit unless an unlikely 100 year old witness steps forward with the evidence.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I’ll hand it to Pesci, DeNiro and Pacino. They’re twice my age and more active than I’ll ever be.
SIDNOTE: I might have been Hoffa in my past life because it feels like everyone’s purpose in life is to constantly annoys me, I take these annoyances very personally, I tell them to eff off yet the come back anyway, I hate bad manners and also I love ice cream.
Bookshelf Battle 