Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran tells us the story of his life from the old peoples home where he is living out his last days. Over the course of 60 years he tells the account of how he returned from the war to be a delivery driver, made friends with people in the Italian mob, became a hitman, forged a close friendship with Jimmy Hoffa and slowly loses everyone around him.

Martin Scorsese’s ninth collaboration with Robert DeNiro is an epic and ambitious project for a number of reasons. Scorsese and DeNiro have plotted the path of a gangster before, so this time they decide they need to tell the mans story through his entire adult life. To do this the film uses a vast amount of digital de-ageing, spans a mammoth 209 minute running time and pulls together a cast that is gangster royalty. DeNiro is joined by Joe Pesci whom they begged out of retirement, Al Pacino for his first film with Scorsese, Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano and Jesse Plemons. And given the nature of the film industry at the moment, none of this was enough to land a major film studio, so Netflix stepped in with financing meaning that aside from a limited cinema release the main way to watch The Irishman will be on your home cinema system.

The story itself focuses wholly on Sheeran and to a large extent with the relationships that he has with Teamster Union President Jimmy Hoffa and Mob Boss Russell Bufalino. The two masters who ultimately would have diverging opinions and force Sheeran into making a decision about his allegiance. It covers the rise of an ordinary man within the mafia, the minutiae of how the mob make their money, the impact on family life, the fact that the friendships in the life are fragile and constantly reminds us how closely they live with death. There is a nice touch added to the many characters we meet where the film freezes and tells us how and when their real life counterpart met their comeuppance, constantly reminding us of death.

The film that it most reminded me of was another DeNiro passion project The Good Shepherd. That was a story about a man whose ambition lost him his family and his ability to feel and this is a similar story on the flip side of the law. DeNiro directed himself in that film but with Scorsese at the helm here it has much more visual flair.

Performance wise we are treated to a master class. DeNiro is back to his inimitable best here essaying a character across decades. Pacino is fantastic in a role that allows him to grandstand as only he knows how. But the absolute star of the show is Pesci. Persuaded out of retirement he steals the show. Russell is calm, controlled and even nice to people, but behind that persona there is an icily powerful man who is prepared to do what he needs to do to stay in control. It is a little bit disappointing that the women in the film are mostly relegated to giving disappointing glares or arguing about whether they can smoke in the car. Anna Paquin does a solid job with an underwritten role as Sheeran’s daughter.

Visually the two biggest things that you will be staring in wide eyed wonder at are the perfect period settings and costumes and the CGI de-ageing. This is not always successful with some odd looking moments, but the story is captivating enough and the effects solid enough that you should quickly forget about needing to constantly second guess what you are seeing. In fact it is more the age of the actors and their physical movements and need for stunt doubles that are more jarring. There is a scene where DeNiro attacks a man who he believes slighted his daughter and whilst he may look young his physical movements are jarring. In the same way that Pacino’s body double is fairly obvious in some scenes.

If I were to look for negatives, it could be argued that this is nothing necessarily that we have not seen before. DeNiro has played a man ageing and looking back on his deeds in Once Upon A Time In America and Scorsese has given us Goodfellas and Casino. It may also pay to have some knowledge of Kennedy, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis for some important political context. But it is an impressive and stirring achievement.

I will be very much looking forward to another viewing at home when it releases.