For a number of subscribers to a particular streaming service, the countdown has finally come to a close. No more quarreling over whether you want to spend the money to go to the theaters. No more avoiding online reviews in fear of spoilers. No more feeding your mafioso genre-loving urges with classics when the kids are asleep. All that has come to an end because it is now Wednesday, November 27th, and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman is now streaming on Netflix.
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Having completed its limited theatrical run after its box office opening on November 1st, this mobster epic–starring thespian legends Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel–has made its way to the Netflix digital library early this morning, ready to be consumed by the streaming service’s eager customers. Using the same theatrical release method the company used with Oscar-winning Roma and Marriage Story, the company looks to continue to entice big Hollywood directors to their projects with a theatrical release, but in a shorter window in order to appease its at-home base.
Here’s a brief synopsis, for those who have avoided all information about the Scorsese film, provided by the LA Times:
Based on the life of Frank Sheeran (De Niro), a mob hitman who claims to have killed Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino), the three-and-a-half-hour film has earned Scorsese some of the best reviews of his career. It is a tale of organized crime, labor, greed, politicians, murder and the bonds of illicit men who age, die and drift into obscurity. It plays as if a metaphor for what was known as the American Century, which stretched from World War II to the new millennium.
Based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses (a metaphor for murder) by Charles Brandt, the film focuses on Sheeran as he reminisces about his life as a hitman. In an interview last month, Scorsese had this to say regarding the man portrayed by De Niro:
“With all the flash and all the spectacle gone, what’s left?… For me, it’s hard to put into words. You take that world and you strip it away and you’re left with individual existence. Frank’s there (in a nursing home). He’s reflecting. I like to think he gets his soul back somehow.”
While this writer continues to be split on Scorsese’s recent comments regarding the MCU and what is cinema (I agree with him on the state of the independent film and how studios are forcing little films out for spectacle, but I do not agree on his take of “no risks” in Marvel films), the director will forever be on the Top 5 of the greatest ever. From Taxi Driver to Goodfellas, Casino to Gangs Of New York, The Departed to The Wolf Of Wall Street, his works continue to gain repeat viewings in my cinematic library. While my Thanksgiving movie tradition is reserved for Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and/or The Godfather Part II, The Irishman will be this year’s pre-Thanksgiving treat… once the kids are asleep.
Will you be watching The Irishman in the very near future? Leave your comments below!
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Source: LA Times.
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