It’s been about a year since Netflix debuted “The Irishman” on its streaming platform. And over that time, Martin Scorsese’s film would go on to earn a ton of awards recognition and cement Netflix’s role as a perennial awards season contender. But now is time for a second life for “The Irishman” thanks to the Criterion Collection, who just released the crime epic on special edition Blu-ray. But thankfully, you don’t have to buy the Blu-ray to watch one of the best behind-the-scenes special features.
Thanks to Netflix, you can watch a 36-minute behind-the-scenes, making-of featurette about Scorsese’s film. The feature, which tells the story of hitman Frank Sheeran and the secrets he’s kept for decades, includes an all-star cast with the likes of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and more. And over the course of the featurette’s run-time, you’ll see how they all prepared for “The Irishman” and brought the stunning film to life.
And normally, the making-of doc for a feature could be fairly typical. But as we know with “The Irishman,” nothing about this film is typical. From the massive budget given to an R-rated crime film, which is unheard of in the last five years, to the incredible attempt to de-age the actors so that they could appear decades younger for large portions of the film, “The Irishman” doc has more intrigue than your run-of-the-mill Blu-ray featurette.
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The doc features interviews with everyone in the cast, as well as producers, Scorsese, and the author of the source material all talking about how the Netflix feature was put together and what it does right in the story of this brutal killer and his close ties to some of the biggest names in American history. Basically, if you’re a fan of Scorsese, any of these actors, or filmmaking, in general, this is a must-watch.
