With the first trailer for The Irishman out, it may be getting clearer why Martin Scorsese′s latest in a 45-year career-spanning string of films is going straight to Netflix. Despite Netflix claims that it can compete financially with movie theater releases, it has yet to provide a reliable run of hits. Can The Irishman help? Even heavy hitters of Scorsese’s past, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, can’t seem to make this movie look compelling. The audience is left with only “another crime movie with those guys,” with no reference to who or what it’s about. And is any amount of CGI and makeup going to get audiences to believe in a married couple played by 36-year-old Anna Paquin paired with 75-year-old De Niro playing 55-year-old Frank Sheeran? If you’re like everyone else you may not know Sheeran claimed late in life to have killed teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa. So it’s no wonder this feels like Scorsese’s version of an Oliver Stone movie.
Take away the Las Vegas and this first trailer for The Irishman looks plenty like a trailer for Scorsese’s Casino, complete with an attempt to get De Niro and Pesci back to how they looked in 1995, De Niro and Pesci looking like they did in 1990 in Goodfellas, Pacino looking like he did back in 1973 in Mean Streets, or, to jump into Francis Ford Coppola pictures, like Pacino and De Niro looked in 1974 in The Godfather, Part II. As much as we loved Peter Cushing’s transformation in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Michael Douglas’s transformation in the Ant-Man movies, a legion of fans will need more improvements in technology before they get past the “uncanny valley”–that reaction you have when something digital is trying to look real but doesn’t quite succeed.
Long-time “bad guy” club member Harvey Keitel, Ant-Man’s and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’s Bobby Cannavale, and “Everybody Loves” Ray Romano are not seen in this trailer, but expected to have key roles. See whether the CGI works for you in this first trailer from Netflix for The Irishman:
