The scene where he beat up the corner market guy was a bit comical for me in a bad way. Me just nitpicking but I could definitely see DeNiro's age there. He was moving so slow and the kicks just didn't look real. But it is what it is.
I can't recall if it's the Golden Globes or some other award show, but
somehow that stupid, stiff, lame and tame scene where Bobby D. beats a guy up and stomps on him got a Best Action nomination whereas nothing from
John Wick: Parabellum made the cut. That's crazy.
The deaging process of the actors was really off putting to me. There were a couple of points when the young de Niro looked like he was wearing a mask of de Niro. Trying to guess the age of de Niro's character in particular, at any point in the movie except when he was very old, was a huge distraction for me. I finally just relied on the age of his children to try and date the scenes.
Also, whatever happened to using actors of different ages to show a character's life. That's exactly how de Niro got to be a big name in Godfather 2. And don't tell me that Marlon Brando couldn't have pulled off playing a young Don Corleone.
Where are the young de Niros?
And don't get me started on the lack of leading women.
Martin Scorsese is one of our greatest directors. Period.
But he has never given a shit about how women are depicted in his movies. As much as I liked
Good Fellas, Raging Bull, Casino, or
Taxi Driver, the parts played by Lorraine Bracco, Cathy Moriarty, Sharon Stone and Jodie Foster are all supporting parts. They're there to get the male leads some female companionship, but mostly they are there for the male gaze. Women should never gravitate to a Scorsese movie in search of strong, supportive, independent, proud women. It's the same reason as a Black male, I don't go to his flicks looking for a strong Black character because there are none.
As far as
The Irishman goes, I'm into Day #3 of trying to get through this beast. It's a long goddamn movie and if it was Scorsese, DeNiro, Pesci, Pacino and Keitel all saddled up for one last slow ride, I wouldn't give this movie the time of fucking day.
But early on I had problems. There's a scene (and this is not a spoiler) where Pesci and DeNiro are working under the hood of a truck and
I COULD NOT TAKE MY EYES OFF OF THEM. Their de-aged faces looked so plastic and so fake and so immobile they reminded me of a first-generation version of Madden football. It was just weird. I thought I was drunk or high and it was messin' with my mind.
So I turned it off and watched
6 Underground instead because even Michael Bay can make a more realistic-looking flick with some disposable trash like that than Scorsese did with
The Irishman.