Martin Scorsese might know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. Ahead of its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on September 27, Netflix has released the official trailer for The Irishman. The prolific director’s collaboration with screen legends Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino follows an elderly man named Frank Sheeran as he recounts his time working for the Bufalino crime family.
The film is based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, which follows the life and alleged crimes committed by Sheeran, including the infamous still-unsolved disappearance of the Teamster union leader. In the official trailer, De Niro’s Frank Sheeran meets with Russell Bufalino (Pesci), mingles with mobsters, and gets to know Jimmy Hoffa (Pesci).
“It was like the army. You followed orders. You did the right thing. You got paid,” Sheeran recounts in the trailer, as glimpses of him blowing up vehicle and disposing of weapons flash across the screen.
While Jimmy Hoffa’s 1975 disappearance was never solved—though his body was never found, he was declared legally dead in 1982—and has been the subject to rumors and conspiracy theories for decades, Brandt’s book claims Sheeran confessed to the murder before his 2003 death.
From the official Netflix synopsis,
[The Irishman is] an epic saga of organized crime in post-war America told through the eyes of World War II veteran Frank Sheeran, a hustler and hitman who worked alongside some of the most notorious figures of the 20th century. Spanning decades, the film chronicles one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history, the disappearance of legendary union boss Jimmy Hoffa, and offers a monumental journey through the hidden corridors of organized crime: its inner workings, rivalries and connections to mainstream politics.
The trailer comes just a day after the film’s official Twitter account teased the much-talked-about de-aging special effects used on its stars, depicting them over a period of several decades. The tweet includes shots of De Niro as Sheeran in four different periods of his life.
A lot can happen in a lifetime. pic.twitter.com/S2eLY1dB88
— The Irishman (@TheIrishmanFilm) September 25, 2019
Written by Steven Zaillian, the film also stars Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, and Jesse Plemons. Additionally, the film marks the (surprisingly) first collaboration between Scorsese and Pacino and sees Pesci’s return to screen for the first time in nearly a decade—though it reportedly took a lot of convincing for him to accept the role.
The Irishman begins a limited theatrical run on November 1, landing on Netflix on November 27.
Feature Image: Netflix
