At its heart, Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is a battle for the heart and soul of one
person: mob hitman Frank Sheeran.
On one side, there's Frank's best friend, notorious Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa.
On the other, there's Frank's mentor, mob boss Russell Bufalino, who introduced Sheeran
to the world of organized crime.
As the decades pass, both Hoffa and Bufalino test Sheeran's loyalty, even as the tenuous
relationship with the union chief falls apart.
A few years after Hoffa gets out of prison on jury-tampering charges, his increasingly
erratic and self-serving behavior threatens to upend the entire operation.
Something needs to be done.
The whole thing comes to a head during a ceremony celebrating Sheeran's commitment to the Teamsters.
"'Cause I don't really deserve all this.
But I have bursitis, and I don't deserve that either."
On what should've been a joyous occasion for Frank, Bufalino pulls him aside to deliver
an urgent message.
First, he gives Sheeran a special ring, commemorating the relationship between the two.
Next, Bufalino gives Sheeran an ominous warning:
"Listen Frank, things have gotten out of hand with our friend again, and some people are
having serious problems with him."
Basically, if Sheeran doesn't get Hoffa to back down, the mob is going to have to take
more drastic measures.
It's a fantastic scene between Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, who plays Bufalino.
This short, subtle conversation doesn't just mark one of Pesci's best moments in the movie
- it's a wonderful testament to his abilities as an actor in general, and the perfect capstone
to his five-decade career.
Here's how.
Before his Oscar-nominated appearance in Scorsese's Raging Bull in 1980, Pesci only had one film
credit to his name - The Death Collector, a low-budget mob thriller - and that came
out in 1976.
However, Robert De Niro saw The Death Collector and, impressed with Pesci's performance, convinced
Scorsese to cast Pesci in Raging Bull.
Thus began Pesci's career, and De Niro and Pesci's decades-long friendship.
Forty years later, history repeated itself: According to Scorsese, Pesci turned down The
Irishman 40 times before De Niro finally convinced him to appear in the movie.
In The Irishman, that relationship is the same, but flipped.
Pesci's Bufalino is the one who sees the potential in De Niro's Sheeran.
He's the one who brings Frank into the larger criminal underworld, and even as Sheeran's
friendship with Hoffa grows, Buffalino is the one who guides the Teamster's career.
That being said, he also loves Sheeran.
"You know how strong I made you?
You know how strong?
You're my kid."
And that one moment from that one scene tells you everything you need to know about their
relationship.
It's disarmingly powerful, especially since Pesci has tightened the reins so much on this
character.
In Pesci's most famous roles, he's unpredictable, violent, and always teetering out of control.
Pesci's screen personas are so often flashy, loud, and not afraid to take charge - whether
that's a good idea or not.
But Russell Bufalino is different.
In The Irishman, Al Pacino's Jimmy Hoffa is the hothead.
De Niro's Sheeran is the beleaguered man caught in the middle.
That leaves Bufalino as the voice of reason, even as the plots the three men are involved
with slowly spiral out of control.
Bufalino wields power.
But diplomacy, not violence, is his preferred method of problem-solving, and the resulting
performance is the one of the most restrained Pesci's ever committed to film.
In this scene, Bufalino never raises his voice.
Even Russell's one, explicit threat of violence is delivered in hushed tones.
"If they can whack a president, they can whack a president of a union."
It's a conspiratorial secret, not a profanity-laced tirade, but somehow that only makes the threat
all the more real.
Bufalino may not be flamboyant, but he's still a scary guy.
Jimmy Hoffa is an important man, but he's also warm and charismatic.
By contrast, there's something quietly menacing about Bufalino.
"So what do you want me to do?"
"No, not that.
Not that."
"What you gotta do is, you know, put a firecracker up Dorfman's ass.
Fitz will get the message.
He'll get the message."
We never see Bufalino do anything overtly criminal, but the implication is that he has
a violent past, and Pesci milks that tension for all it's worth, particularly in this scene
where he's explaining that something must be done about Hoffa.
"You're gonna have to talk to him and tell him, it's what it is."
From another character, that would be a throwaway line.
From Bufalino, it's a statement of purpose.
No matter how much Sheeran argues, there's only a single way forward - Russell's way
- and deep down, Frank knows it.
Of course, there's another reason Russell Bufalino commands our respect: Pesci himself.
The Irishman could very well be Pesci's last big movie.
The actor officially "retired" in 1999, and has only been in two live-action films since
then, one of which was little more than a cameo.
As such, The Irishman is both a final chance to marvel at Pesci's talent and an opportunity
to say goodbye to one of his generation's most exciting actors.
Over the course of The Irishman, Bufalino earns our respect.
But Pesci?
He's had it for years.
Thanks for watching.
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