The Irishman: family father and murderer

"No good movie is too long," said Roger Ebert, the greatest film critic ever. And this can be proven in The Irishman, Martin Scorsese's latest masterpiece, which, in its three-a-half hours of runtime, enchants, surprises, and provides the kind of experience that only great works of art deliver.

Based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, the script tells the story of "the Irishman" Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), known for his involvement in the promiscuous relationship between American unions of the 1960s and 1970s and organized crime. In the literary work, Sheeran claims to have killed Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), the most outstanding union leader in the United States.

With the freedom granted by Netflix, one of the film's producers, Scorsese weaves a collage of Sheeran's memories with slow scenes that serve as a guiding thread for the narrative: a long car trip with his friend Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) and their wives, between Philadelphia and Detroit, for the wedding of Bufalino's niece.

Lawyer Bufalino is a kind of mentor to Sheeran and was responsible for introducing him to the main bosses of the city's mafia, Felix DiTullio (Bobby Cannavale) and the "Gentle Don," Angelo Bruno (Harvey Keitel). Each character is introduced with a caption informing how their death will be.

The narrative is a journey that begins in the 1940s and presents most of the episodes in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Although the critical element of the book is the death of the iconic president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, the film focuses on the relationship between Sheeran, Hoffa (who disappeared and was never found), and Bufalino.

At the film's end, the story returns to the nursing home corridor where the once-powerful "painter of walls" (a code used by the mafia to define professional killers) has just prayed with a young priest. Sheeran asks the religious man to leave the door ajar when he leaves, perhaps hoping for forgiveness from his daughters.