Sheeran died in 2003 before the book was published, though he knew the guy interviewing him before he died was working on a book. So the question of him profiting from his crimes never even comes up, legally speaking.
As a side note, this movie was probably way easier to get past the film studio’s legal department than Goodfellas or Casino, because, as the movie itself notes, everybody concerned is dead. No need for clearances or worries about libel cases. Any legal issues are as irrelevant as with Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.
I thought this was OK, we split it into two nights because the first half seemed to drag.
My only real complaint was the editing. Several scenes were chopped so much that we kind of shook our head. For example, there is a point where he walks into the restaurant in the first hour with the bufolino lawyer, and there’s all this ‘who is who’ going on, he sits down at the table with the lawyer, the camera cuts and now he’s talking with Rus…we’re like what happened to the lawyer? Then at the end, the whole thing of him getting on the plane felt like a convoluted mess. It’s like everyone is in on it except the audience.
I read in some interview they cut another 1-1.5hrs out of this that could have easily made the final cut. I think this would have been better served as a mini-series of 4-5 1 hour shows. For example, several stuff showing Frank as the president of his local, but never ever anything about what he did as a local after that first scene where he walks in and introduces himself. The movie only showed him with Rus or Jimmy after that. The movie makes several points that he’s the president, but why no other scenes about him and how he ran the local?
It’s a decent homage, but I have a real hard time putting it up for any oscar worthy performances or story or script.
I think the movie had more of an impact for me because it took place in the region of the country I lived as a kid, and Sheeran reminded me of my dad, especially at the end.
Ah, well! That explains it. Thank you Mark. He “slipped through their fingers.” Those other Hoffa writers should have been hounding him to leverage his authority. Instead, they’re just lamenting his bestseller.
When you put it that way, I wonder if Sheeran’s family even got any money? But that was the big criticism of the veracity of his authority, so presumably they did, although I’m not sure how anyone would know. Are book deals public? I made one book deal (very small) and it was 100% private.
I certainly don’t. But the folks who have been writing and opining about the Hoffa disappearance certainly do. I love it that it was some small out of the way gang – Philadelphia. I also love the lingo: “painting houses” is code for hired hits and the stuff about carpentry is code for disposal of the body (I heard you paint houses? Yep, and I also do carpentry,) It’s just like talking to a plumber! Mostly I love that you never hear that shit in any of the other mob movies, but it just screams believable to me.
p.s. There should be an Academy Award for talking on the phone and saying barely anything but saying everything at the same time, so they can give it to Robert DeNiro for his call to Jo.
Ended up liking the movie a lot. It’s long, but I didn’t mind since I could watch it at my own pace and basically consumed it over the course of two days.
Performances were good all around, and I dug Pesci playing against the type of character you’re kinda expecting from him, i.e. someone who is menacing, hot-headed and driven by manic energy. Pesci’s Bufalino isn’t anything like that. The scenes of him protecting Frank or unsuccessfully trying to win the affection of Frank’s daughter were touching. Nice to see Pesci in action again. (I’m guessing he’ll go back to enjoying his retirement now.)
The movie had many moments like the one called out by Dave above. Like that breakfast scene in which Bufalino tells Frank that they’ve had it with Hoffa and that he (Frank) himself will have to take care of it. Frank pretty much doesn’t say anything anymore at some point and his gaze shifts between Bufalino and the wall behind him, but you can see the sadness, anger and disbelief in his face right there.
Followed by what you wrote about. God damn. And yes, that face, we’ve grown up with it, and it feels like we can read it like a familiar book now. He’s a masterful actor.
Although not related to the film, I spent the last few days reading up on various characters and their successors and those interested in mafia history will find the fate of the last boss of the Gambino Family interesting.
He was assassinated by… QAnon
On March 16, a 24-year-old suspect Anthony Comello was arrested in Brick, New Jersey, by the New York Police Department and US Marshals, to face murder charges on Staten Island. Authorities originally believed the crime may have been related to a personal dispute (possibly a romantic matter) and not organized crime activity. On April 3, Comello was indicted and was being held in protective custody at an undisclosed New York City correctional facility. On May 10, Comello pleaded not guilty to murder and weapon possession charges. One news report cited unnamed mob experts as stating that he “is almost certainly marked for death”. Comello had already texted that his “family is marked”.
In July 2019, Comello’s defense attorney stated that Comello had become obsessed with QAnon conspiracy theories, believing Cali was a member of a “deep state”. Comello was convinced “he was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself” to handcuff Cali and place him under citizen’s arrest, as Comello had earlier attempted with Mayor Bill de Blasio. The New York Times reported that at his first court appearance, Comello “displayed symbols and phrases associated with QAnon scrawled on his hand in pen.” The defense attorney is seeking to prove Comello “not guilty by reason of mental defect”.
This was a nostalgia trip for me. My father drove a truck in the Detroit area and he was a Teamsters shop steward at the Canada Dry bottling plant in the city. Canada Dry is featured prominently in the film, especially the shot of Hoffa taking that call while sitting on the dock at the lake with a bottle of CD ginger ale at his elbow.
Hoffa’s early career involved becoming president of Teamsters Local 299 which absorbed other locals, including my father’s. He would see Hoffa at the HQ in Hamtramck. My father said that “Mr. Hoffa” was the only guy he was afraid of. He also commented that the parking lot at the HQ was one of the safest places he could park his Cadillac as it was guarded by lots of big heavily armed guys who he assumed were all connected up.
My father respected Hoffa, and loathed Fitzsimmons, really hating that he played golf with the big wigs. Golf at the time, where I grew up in Macomb County, was a game for swells, not for working people. He knew Hoffa was a tough guy, but he also knew that the bosses were equally tough and that the workers needed a sonofabitch to stand up to the bosses and excused the other excesses.
So the film nailed the details as I remember them growing up in the 60’s.
My father’s union job paid well, housed and fed us and helped put me through college - first in my family to do so.
I wish that the film had spent a little more time on how the Teamsters helped guys like my father, who didn’t finish high school, earn a good salary and realized protections on the job where the employees could practice some form of democracy rather than checking their citizenship rights at the door when they clocked in. Yes, the mob stuff was real but I wish it hadn’t overshadowed the good that the Teamsters did for families like mine.
The last place Hoffa was seen in public, Machus Red Fox Restaurant on Telegraph in Bloomfield is close to where my sister lives, now under new management and new name.
Never mind that the real-life Sheeran, who in death can no longer argue his case, appears to have invented the story told in the movie, based on a book written by his lawyer, that he was just following orders when, he claims, he murdered one of his best friends, ex-union boss Jimmy Hoffa (played by an egregiously scenery-chewing Pacino).
Also recounted in the film, without a lick of skepticism, is the claim that John F. Kennedy rode a wave of mob vote-rigging to the presidency, then was ordered assassinated by the very same gangsters.
I love that the story’s verisimilitude is a sticking point with so many people. Did they watch Inglourious Basterds and come away angry that Tarantino lied to them about how WWII ended?
Yeah, insisting on absolute historical accuracy, especially when the real truth is very much a mystery, is a weird hill to die on.
If a film is good, I don’t care if there was a literal rescue mission during Operation Overlord to rescue a Private Ryan. Good story > absolute verisimilitude.
… I mean, there is a pretty considerable difference between a movie that offhandly claims to be based on a true story like The Irishman, and Inglourious Basterds. That movie’s entire theme is that historical fiction is a pack of attractive lies we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel good. It not only conspicuously and deliberately incorporates blatant historical falsehoods to make its point, it criticizes its own audience for buying into it. (How dare those dastardly Nazis spread lies using film as their propaganda, you think during the movie theater scene. While watching a movie where an American kills Hitler.)
Towards the end the Pesci character says something to the effect of it’s no big deal for the mob to have killed Hoffa since they already killed a president.
That didn’t bother me at all, because the movie never suggested the Pesci character had firsthand knowledge of the JFK assassination. And while there’s no direct evidence the mob was behind it, there are mobsters on record later saying they heard from a guy who heard from a guy (etc.) that the mob was behind it. (Which, to be clear, doesn’t prove anything about the facts of matter, but does suggest it’s something the Pesci character might say.)
