Another movie which came and went in theaters before I got a chance to see it way back in 2011. Thanks to Hulu I caught it before the streaming service’s time to offer this expired.
Irishman is loosely based upon the criminal career of Danny Greene circa the Sixties and Seventies. Being a mafia flick, the usual array of mobster-type actors are present: Christopher Walken, Paul Sorvino, Vincent D’Onofrio and minor players from Goodfellas/Sopranos. Narrating the story is Val Kilmer as a police detective who grew up with Greene until their careers took them in different directions.
I enjoyed it overall. Compared to other films while tend to glamorize mobster lifestyles, Irishman is grittier. Greene is obviously Irish so the best position he can have in the Outfit is muscle-for-hire so he usually intimidates or beats people who owe money to Shondor Birns. He also used his role to consolidate all the garbage collectors in the greater Cleveland area into a “union.” Being an enforcer means he doesn’t necessarily have a nice house, cool car or special privileges at a fancy club. Greene probably remained in his working-class neighborhood to be inconspicuous. All was going relatively well for him until a trivial incident led to him falling out with the Outfit’s good graces. Thus their two-year campaign to murder him.
If you enjoy mobster movies, definitely watch Kill the Irishman. It’s not as mythical as Goodfellas or a fantasy like the Godfather trilogy, to me Irishman is what organized crime films should be, cautionary tales about what happens to those who “live by the sword.”