'The Irishman' Teaser Lets Us Hear (But Not See) Martin Scorsese's New Gangster Epic
The first teaser for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is here! And...there's no footage. But hey, we'll take what we can get. In the Netflix film, Scorsese reunites with his original leading man, Robert De Niro. He also reunites with Harvey Keitel and Joe Pesci, the latter having come out of retirement to work with the director again. And if all that wasn't enough, Scorsese is also working with Al Pacino for the very first time. Watch (or I guess I should say listen to) The Irishman teaser below.
The Irishman Teaser
"I heard you paint houses," we hear Al Pacino say within the darkness of The Irishman teaser. That cryptic line of dialogue comes directly from the source material – the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. "I heard you paint houses" was a coded way of confirming the book (and now film's) subject, Frank Sheeran, was a hitman.
Sheeran is played by Robert De Niro, while Pacino plays legendary Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa. No one knows what happened to Hoffa in real life – he vanished in 1975, and was presumed murdered. According to I Heard You Paint Houses, Sheeran was the man who did the deed.
Here's the book's synopsis, which will also serve as the plot of the film:
"I heard you paint houses" are he first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa.
Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually Sheeran would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures.
When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, the Irishman did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself.
For fans of Scorsese, The Irishman is a big deal. Not only is he returning to the gangster movie genre for the first time in years, he's also working with several actors from his past. It's also a big deal that the acclaimed filmmaker is working with Netflix – more proof the streaming service deserves to be taken seriously in this day and age.
I'm a little disappointed there's no footage in this teaser, but I think I can guess why: a large portion of the movie is going to feature De Niro, Pacino and more digitally de-aged – similar to what Marvel has been doing with some actors for flashbacks. Scorsese and Netflix are likely waiting to reveal that de-aging footage, as it's bound to catch a few people off guard.
There's no official release date for The Irishman yet, but this teaser confirms it will arrive in the fall.