How the 2010s changed Hindi film

In years to come, the Hindi cinema of 2019 is unlikely to be recalled with fondness. Even a standard 10-best-film list would be difficult, considering the utter lack of contenders. The few bright sparks were Zoya Akhtar’s joyous hip hop drama, Gully Boy, Abhishek Chaubey’s revisionist dacoit film, Sonchiriya, and two fine festival titles from 2018: Vasan Bala’s Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and Ivan Ayr’s Soni. Apart from this, there was little to cheer about—and a lot to rue.

This year’s Hindi cinema was marked by a nation-love bordering on the pathological. Various levels of patriotic pride informed historicals (Manikarnika, Panipat), political propaganda titles (PM Narendra Modi), war films (Uri: The Surgical Strike), team-building dramas (Mission Mangal), action blockbusters (War) and thrillers (Batla House). The national anthem played a few times, the flag was waved incessantly. Many films in 2019 reflected a mood of unrest, with themes of militaristic pride, cattle protection, caste oppression, and fears of invasion and internal terrorism.

It’s a bit of a downer to end a fascinating decade in Hindi cinema. At the start of the 2010s, we were watching films on TV and DVD. By the end, everyone was streaming “content". The “100 crore club" no longer had the weight it did in the 2000s: Baahubali’s Hindi version became the first film to breach the ₹500-crore mark, and Thugs Of Hindostan could make ₹300 crore and be considered a huge failure. There were changes in the films themselves: Songs no longer looked or sounded the way they used to; settings were as likely to be Bhopal or Aligarh as Delhi and Mumbai. Here are seven tectonic shifts that marked Hindi cinema in the 2010s:

Two of the Khans still have the biggest hits
In the 2010s, as in the 2000s and the 1990s, if you wanted a really big hit, you cast the Khans—two of them, that is. Not a single Shah Rukh Khan film figures in the top 10 earners of the decade (net gross, Box Office India). Salman Khan, on the other hand, has Nos. 3 (Tiger Zinda Hai, ₹339 crore), 6 (Bajrangi Bhaijaan, ₹315 crore) and 7 (Sultan, ₹300 crore). Aamir Khan has Nos. 2 (Dangal, ₹374 crore) and 4 (PK, ₹337 crore)—and he made a killing overseas with Dangal and Secret Superstar.

Shah Rukh is still a force—if you total up his box office earnings for the decade, he’s in second place behind Salman. But he’s a diminishing one, crowded out by contemporaries like his fellow Khans and Akshay Kumar, younger stars like Ranveer Singh and Ranbir Kapoor, and Hrithik Roshan. Kumar might be the decade’s most dependable actor, churning out two films a year like clockwork, which nearly always make ₹100-150 crore.

While films built around female stars were still a rarity, several that did get made were memorable, especially Queen (Kangana Ranaut), Neerja (Sonam K. Ahuja) and Pari (Anushka Sharma). Alia Bhatt barely put a foot wrong, but it was arguably Deepika Padukone’s decade, with monster hits in Padmaavat, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Chennai Express, and a lovely muted turn in Piku.

The top-grossing Hindi film wasn’t really a Hindi film
Many of the highest-grossing Hindi films of all time were from this decade. Still, it’s a delicious bit of irony that the biggest earner of all was S.S. Rajamouli’s action fantasy Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, a Telugu film “made simultaneously" in Hindi but clearly not of that language. The Hindi version made ₹510 crore (the worldwide collection across languages was ₹1,810 crore). Along with the first Baahubali film, which released in 2015, its success was a warning bell for Hindi cinema, which has since tried, but not managed to replicate, its superior VFX and storytelling brio.

There were other commercial threats. India had been a white whale for Hollywood: long pursued, never captured. But The Jungle Book ( ₹258 crore across languages) opened the floodgates. Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame grossed ₹294 crore and ₹464 crore respectively. It forced the Hindi industry to think of tentpoles and franchises—but they are yet to get it down to a science.

National interest
Filmic patriotism has been on the rise through the decade. It wasn’t just the films themselves—in 2016, playing the national anthem before the start of every movie became mandatory. If this was a reflection of the increasing premium placed on patriotic pride and, especially after 2014, aggressive nationalism, it’s also true that films tried their hardest to sell the nation to its citizens. Films that weren’t enamoured of the country—Haider, Mukkabaaz—were few and far between.

Not the same song and dance
The multi-composer album went from novelty to industry mainstay in the 2010s. While some composers—A.R. Rahman, Vishal Bhardwaj, Amit Trivedi—still commanded enough respect to not have to share album space, younger hitmakers like Badshah and Tanishk Bagchi were usually pulled in for a party song or two, which was then combined with a sad number, a happy number and a Sufi track. Sometimes it worked, but it mostly sounded like what it was—a bunch of disparate artists participating in something they don’t have ownership of.

There have been some memorable sounds: Sneha Khanwalkar’s earthy, hip Gangs of Wasseypur, the album of the decade; Amit Trivedi’s Lootera and Bombay Velvet; the Mumbai rap scene crystallized in Gully Boy. Yet, the true glory belonged to the words, not the music. Amitabh Bhattacharya, Irshad Kamil, Kausar Munir, Varun Grover and Shellee moved dexterously between languages and dialects, bringing wit and poetry to films that often didn’t match up.

The evolution of film music was accompanied by changes in how the songs appeared on screen. The lip-synced number was eschewed in favour of the musical montage, especially in small to mid-budget films. Vishal Bhardwaj and Sanjay Leela Bhansali still had lip-synced songs, but this essential Indian film tradition could be on its way out. As the song montage grew in richness, the art of choreography dwindled. Apart from Bhansali, Bhardwaj, Anurag Basu and Zoya Akhtar, few directors seemed interested in the potentialities of the song sequence.

A new Middle Cinema
Middle Cinema saved Hindi film in the 2010s, offering a vital alternative to the often anodyne mainstream. Middle-class Delhi was an important setting in the early years of the decade—Band Baaja Baaraat, Ankhon Dekhi, Vicky Donor—but later, there was a crucial exodus to tier 2 and 3 towns (Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Bareilly Ki Barfi). Ayushmann Khurrana was at the centre of this movement, as were Bhumi Pednekar, Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Tripathi. This new Middle Cinema dovetailed with arthouse film (Masaan, Titli, Tumbbad) and the mainstream, with titles like Sui Dhaaga and Badrinath Ki Dulhania—an attempt to combine the virtues of small films with big stars.

Gently down the stream
Streaming platforms have only been around in India a few years, but their impact already seems potentially industry-altering. For one, there’s the fight for viewer attention—Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced they were spending $400 million ( ₹2,845 crore) over 2019-20 in India, a number that could well be matched by rivals Amazon, Hotstar, Apple and Disney. Even in a country like India, where the theatre experience is a ritual, an increasing number of people regard streaming as the more cost- and time-effective way of viewing everything but the biggest blockbusters. Then there is streaming’s ability to attract talent—an actor like Pankaj Tripathi or Rasika Dugal can now choose the better pay and billing of a streaming show over a supporting role in a bad commercial film.

The benefits of streaming are many, but for Indian film-lovers, the greatest service is access to films in languages other than one’s own, properly subtitled and available for viewing mere months after the theatrical (or festival) release. Perhaps in the next decade, this increased familiarity will lead to freer movement of talent and the emergence of a truly pan-Indian cinema, cutting across language and geography.

Rise of the non-star
This decade, several actors joined Manoj Bajpayee and Irrfan Khan in the fertile middle ground between superstardom and niche acclaim. After years of bit parts and obscurity, Nawazuddin Siddiqui broke through in 2012 with Kahaani and Gangs Of Wasseypur; he became an arthouse muse overnight, supplementing that with scene-stealing work in “mass" films like Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Rajkummar Rao emerged simultaneously, an actor with an affinity for quietly determined strivers: Shahid, Aligarh, Newton. Khurrana and Pednekar became the king and queen of the new Middle Cinema, displaying, like Taapsee Pannu, a willingness to refuse outright commercial work. Add to this Pankaj Tripathi, Rasika Dugal, Seema Pahwa, Brijendra Kala and Sanjay Mishra, and you have an embarrassment of riches. Hindi cinema will have to work hard in the coming years to keep them away from streaming TV and film.

This piece appeared in Mint Lounge, the last issue of the decade.

Dabangg 3: Review

In the last few years, Salman Khan has headlined films that are, by his standards, relatively high-concept. But he ends the decade as he began it – with an unconscionably silly action film. If Salman fans have despaired of the intellectual demands made of them by Tiger Zinda Hai or Bharat, his latest effort restores order to the Bhaiverse. Dabangg 3 is determinedly, proudly stupid – a sadly representative end for a decade of largely unwatchable Hindi action cinema.

This film would have been unbearable at 90 minutes; two hours and 42 minutes is clearly Prabhudeva’s delayed revenge on critics for trashing his performance in Sapnay. The opening stretch is generic Salman violence, interspersed with jokes about pants falling, testicle-grabbing and bottom-wiping. Just when you’re wondering how this could possibly keep up for another two hours, primary heavy Bali (Kichcha Sudeepa) turns up and the film heads into a long flashback. Chulbul Pandey – not yet a cop, just a muscly do-gooder – falls in love with Khushi (Saiee Manjrekar). She likes him too, and they plan to marry after she finishes her studies. Then, local strongman Bali, who’s also fallen for Khushi, gets wind of her engagement.

Bali overreacts somewhat, dropping Khushi over the edge of a cliff. Pandey, it has to be said, bounces back quickly from the loss, wooing Khushi’s best friend, Rajjo (Sonakshi Sinha), and transforming into the indestructible wisecracking inspector we know. Writers Dilip Shukla and Aloke Upadhyaya make it clear, though, that his virtues predate the uniform and the stache. When he meets Khushi’s parents to ask for her hand in marriage, he tells them he’ll be giving dahej, not the other way around. How about no one give anyone dowry?

Prabhudeva’s first Hindi film as director, Wanted (2009), starring Khan, was made at a time when the hyper-violent, cartoonish Tamil cinema-influenced action film was still somewhat of a novelty for Bollywood. Over the course of the decade, thanks for Rohit Shetty and his imitators, it became the dominant Hindi action style. You can see all its dubious qualities in Dabangg 3: stop-start action, absurd CGI, quick cutting to hide the star’s actual athletic abilities. Women are there to be saved (Rajjo, trafficking survivors, Rajjo again) or sacrificed so the hero can better himself (Khushi).

There’s one passable joke. Chulbul is laying waste to a garage full of goons when one of them says: “No violence, I’ll do something else for you." With that, he starts to sing "Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahi". We hear the original song, from the 1991 Aamir Khan movie, in Kumar Sanu’s voice. It’s a nice memory, from a time when Salman still had a neck, and his whole career in front of him, and looked like he couldn't hurt a fly.

This review appeared in Mint. 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Review

In The Last Jedi, Rey (Daisy Ridley) is told by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) that her parents were junk traders who sold her for drinking money. This scene was hailed by many critics as a departure from the usual Star Wars birth politics. To me, it seemed as impermanent a revelation as the superheroes turning to dust at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. For there are two things you can count on in Star Wars films. No matter how sophisticated a killing vessel is introduced, it will still have a conveniently located bridge or tower which, if hit, is liable to blow the whole thing up. And nothing, nothing, matters more than the family you belong to.

So there are further revelations about Rey’s ancestors in JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which carry the unexpected whiff of the Harry Potter books, with Rey as a brave orphan who has a psychic connection with a powerful antagonist. The reveal makes little sense when it arrives, but because Abrams connects it with the ancient history of the series, we’re supposed to just accept it. It’s a (presumably) wide galaxy, but the individuals who’ve decided its fate over nine films have been a tight-knit bunch.

After Luke’s sacrifice at the end of The Last Jedi, Rey is now trying to master the Force under the tutelage of his sister, General Leia (the late Carrie Fisher). She regroups with Poe (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), and they head, droids in tow, to find someone who’ll decipher a Sith code, which will help them find the evil emperor Palpatine. Kylo, meanwhile, has told Palpatine he’ll find and finish off Rey, though his looks of morose longing during their psychic conversations suggest he’d rather spend a quiet evening reading to her.

There’s a difference between a rich tale and a long one. Over nine films, Star Wars has revealed itself to be the latter. The films have rarely ventured beyond a few basic questions: Who’s your father? Can you resist the pull of evil? Will you listen to your teacher? The original films were made in the spirit of Flash Gordon and old-time Westerns, but escapism isn’t enough in an age which demands that franchise films be about something. But the Rey-Kylo films don’t resonate on any level except fandom – and with core Star Wars fans being what they are, this is a dubious achievement.

Abrams, who took over as director after Colin Trevorrow left the project citing creative differences, was the right person for The Force Awakens. The 2015 film had several throwbacks to the original trilogy, which seemed reasonable considering it was continuing a storyline from 1983. The Rise of Skywalker is also littered with throwbacks – Han! Lando! Luke! – but this time the trick feels tired. Unlike the original trilogy and the prequels, the three new films cannot stand on their own. It’s sad that the Star Wars franchise has aligned so smoothly with Disney’s number one agenda – to relentlessly market nostalgia.

This isn’t to say that the film is dreary or difficult to watch. Ridley, Isaac and Boyega are almost as winsome a trio as Hamill, Ford and Fisher. Abrams can’t match the strong visual flourishes Rian Johnson brought to The Last Jedi, but he does crowd-pleasing banter-punctuated action better than most. Still, it’s difficult to care for a film whose head is so clearly in the past. “You will find only what you bring in," Yoda once told Luke. As the Skywalker saga buries its lightsaber in the sand, it should be with the rueful knowledge that the new films, given a whole galaxy to play with, redrew the same boundaries, and left us with little to discover.

This review appeared in Mint.

Mardaani 2: Review

Has a major studio film ever kicked off its opening credits while a rape is in progress? Mardaani 2 begins with statistics of sexual assault by underage perpetrators in India, then shows us a meticulous abduction by an ordinary-looking young man. As the camera pans away from a parked car, screams emanating from within, the Yash Raj and Rani Mukerji credits flash onscreen in red.

I wonder if I was alone in finding this moment particularly discomfiting. Opening credits are a safe space, a chance to cheer a star or get acquainted with the people responsible for the next two or three hours of your life. By invading this space, Gopi Puthran’s film is warning viewers that it cares little for their comfort, and will use the issue of sexual assault in as direct a manner as possible to suit its purposes. This is reiterated when superintendent of police Shivani Roy (Mukerji) arrives on the scene the next day. She sweeps the area, issues orders and leaves, but the camera lingers, making a lurid swoop and zooming in on the mutilated body of the girl.

At the heart of Mardaani (2014) was the cat-and-mouse dynamic between Tahir Raj Bhasin’s child trafficker and Mukerji’s blunt, brilliant cop. There’s an attempt to replicate that here, with Vishal Jethwa playing an even younger antagonist. His serial rapist and killer-for-hire, Sunny, is scarily efficient but almost unwatchably monstrous. But we have to watch – Sunny gets almost as much screen-time as Shivani. It’s Raman Raghav 2.0 all over again, only set in a moral universe and with a message attached.

Puthran, who wrote Mardaani and has written and directed the sequel, uses another device to unsettle viewers. At several points in the film, Sunny winks at the audience and even addresses the camera. It’s a baldly effective strategy, establishing a direct connection between the madman on screen and us. But it makes no sense: there’s nothing else that aligns with Sunny’s breaking of the fourth wall. The film isn’t formally inventive or playful or trying to make the audience question its expectations, like Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. The only purpose is to creep you out, which it does successfully, though it’s ironic that a film about assault gets its point across by invading the viewer’s space.

Through the film, we see a variety of men talk down to Shivani, from her superior officer to a local politician. Towards the end, she gives an impassioned speech on TV about the plight of women (it leaves one character in tears). The hollowness of this scene becomes clearer when you compare it to Soni, Ivan Ayr’s 2018 film about two female cops trying to do their job in an alternately patronizing and violent patriarchal setup. The protagonists of Soni are competent but also fallible and stretched to the limit; they fail, recover and battle on. Mukerji, faced with far bigger problems, is calm, inspiring, authoritative, serene smile on her face at all times: less woman, more message.

A poster for Mardaani 2 had asked “Why does the age of a rapist matter?" The film, though, stops just before any serious consideration of the question becomes necessary. This is par for the course: Hindi cinema has no appetite for complexity when it comes to sexual assault, opting time and again for vigilante retribution. Shivani ended Mardaani looking on as Bhasin’s antagonist is beaten to death by a group of women. In this slick, gruesome sequel, Shivani again steps aside and allows victims to exact revenge, in full view of the public. You can’t pick and choose your lynchings.

This review appeared in Mint.

Pati, Patni Aur Woh: Review

In the trailer for Pati Patni Aur Woh, Kartik Aaryan’s Abhinav ends a rant about put-on Indian middle-class husbands with: “If we somehow find a roundabout way to get sex (from our wives), we’re called balaatkari (rapists)". The line was roundly criticized, and has been replaced in Mudassar Aziz's film with badsanskari (bad values). Offensive as it is, I wish it’d been left in. It fixes the film squarely in the #MeToo era, with serious questions of consent devolving into inanities like “now we can’t even talk to women anyone".

Perhaps the line was bait – there’s nothing in the film remotely as incendiary. In fact, the problem with Pati, Patni Aur Woh isn’t that it’s offensive, but that it's dull and predictable for too much of its running time. It starts with a provocation; as their families meet to discuss a possible union, Vedika (Bhumi Pednekar, her skin tone back to normal after Bala) responds to Abhinav's timid question about her hobbies with “Sex". But she likes what she sees, and soon they’re husband and wife.

The film skips over their honeymoon period; a few scenes after the wedding, they’re just another Kanpur couple leading staid lives. Even their jobs are boring – he’s in the Public Works Department; she’s a physics teacher. The stasis weighs on Abhinav, who keeps bringing up an old flame to his friend Fahim (Aparshakti Khurana). But then a new distraction enters his life: Tapasya (Ananya Panday), newly arrived from Delhi, in search of a plot of land. Abhinav, captivated by her big-city glamour, gets assigned to her case. Soon, he’s spending all his time with her and lying to his wife.

As Abhivav begins to stray, the film loses out on having him and Vedika in scenes together. It’s a pity: the two are a believable, deftly drawn couple, more interesting when they’re bickering than he is with the blandly available Tapasya. Aaryan's moustache might remind viewers of Amol Palekar, but it might be better to think of him as a defiantly un-woke alternative to the male anxiety figure represented by Ayushmann Khurana. He gets to do his patented women-ruin-everything rants, but the film wants it both ways, tacking on a ridiculous twist to show how much agency Vedika has.

Aziz’s films after Happy Bhaag Jayegi (2016) haven’t quite landed, but he has an undeniable way with words. All the actors get eccentrically memorable lines here, with Aparshakti a particular delight. Not many performers have the chops to make “Astaghfirullah" and “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone" equally funny. It might be time to take the actor off supporting duty.

This review appeared in Mint.

Panipat: Review

Thousands of miles from their respective homelands, the Maratha and Afghan armies stare each other down across the battlefield of Panipat. It’s 1761; the Marathas rule over most of India. Their general, Sadashiv Rao Bhau (Arjun Kapoor), gives a pretty speech about how theirs is a Hindustani sena, comprising Hindus and Muslims, people of different castes and professions. His opposite number, Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali (Sanjay Dutt), offers no words of encouragement to his troops. Instead, he simply calls for a start to the hamla (attack), a word whose most common usage today is to refer to terrorist attacks.

This contrast is indicative of the tug-of-war at the heart of Panipat – between the kind of historical film that’s popular today and the kind of film Gowariker likes to make. In Lagaan, Swades and Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, a ragtag group comes together to work for the country. You see this in Panipat too, with Sadashiv stitching together an 18th century rainbow coalition. When Rao takes the Udgir fort from the Nizam of Hyderabad, he refuses to execute the enemy general, Ibrahim Khan Gardi (Nawab Khan), adding him to his army instead. When his commanders warn him that a Gardi is not to be trusted, he reminds them that Shivaji’s army also included Muslims.

But visions of togetherness alone won’t cut it in 2019. So Gowariker also plays up the divide. Before we even see Abdali, there are pointed shots of his courtiers being served meat, and a close-up of a knife being buried in a cooked bird. A little later, moments after Dutt’s frightening visage is revealed, there’s an assassination plot. Abdali survives, stabbing conspirators and beating the last one to death with his Kohinoor-emblazoned crown, which he then wears (Audiences will recall another Afghan making a murderous start to a film: Alauddin Khilji, perpetrator of treason in 2018’s Padmaavat).

Like other historical films of the last two years, Panipat is dominated by Hindu iconography: a Shivling, a song about Shiva, and – if my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me – an aerial view of the Maratha army in the shape of a saffron-and-green Ganesh. Abdali is shown offering namaaz once; Gowariker wisely opts not to frame his invasion as a holy war. The Afghan king is shown to be a smart, if brutal, leader, trusting his instincts over the promises of the unctuous Najib ud-Daulah (Mantra). Dutt, looming over the camera, is a wonderful heavy, certainly more of a force than Kapoor’s stiff-backed peshwa. Had the writers found ways to contrast them more subtly, this would have been a richer film. As it stands, you get Abdali murdering his soldiers in fits of rage, while Sadashiv dances with his compatriots and looks positively terrified by the frank advances of Parvati Bai (Kriti Sanon).

Panipat is made in the shadow of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani (2015). Not only is Bajirao’s son, Shamsher, a character in this film but Parvati remarks, when Sadashiv is set to leave, that she’s heard peshwas who go north “return with a Mastani". There’s even a leaf taken out of Bhansali’s love-is-pain handbook, with Parvati, a physician, makes overtures while tending to Sadashiv’s war wounds. But Gowariker doesn’t have the stomach for it. Sadashiv may win over his love by slashing his hand, but the blood-letting happens offscreen, and Parvati doesn’t cut herself in response, as Bhansali would have preferred.

Panipat does do something that Bhansali, and the other directors of recent historical films, didn’t bother with – which is to give the viewer a sense of history playing out. The film spends some two hours of its 170-minute runtime clearly setting out the events leading up to Third Battle. We see Abdali and Sadashiv entreat and threaten their way towards building their armies, meeting Rohillas, Rajputs, Mughals and anyone else who can help (the pick of these cameos is Kunal Kapoor as the much-sought-after Shuja ud-Daulah, his voice a sandpaper rasp). Some of these vignettes might stretch historical credulity, like Parvati asking for supplies from Sakina Begum (Zeenat Aman), but they give a sense of the political maneuvering that preceded any war in those times. Though Sadashiv sneers at politics, the film doesn’t, which is a relief.

The battle itself is a mixed bag. Some of the strategic decisions have the ring of authenticity – an “Eid ka chand" formation, cannons fired off camels’ backs – and most of the action conforms to the realm of earthly physics, which was not the case in Bajirao or Manikarnika. But the CGI lets Gowariker down, and there’s little sense of the ebb and flow that must have accompanied the real clash, one of the largest in 18th century India. Then there’s the unfortunate decision to make the Afghans comic villains, all bulging eyes and sneak attacks, while the Marathas are filmed fighting (and losing) in devotional slo-mo.

My favourite scene comes a little earlier in the film. The two armies are camped out on opposite shores of the flooded Yamuna. Abdali and Sadashiv get their first look at one other via telescope. The frame is a static iris shot, like early cinema. Both men talk aloud, addressing the other. Even though there’s miles of raging river between them, they appear to be having a conversation. It’s one of those moments which wouldn't work on paper. You’d have to see it on film.

This review appeared in Mint.

The Irishman: Review

Every so often in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, when we're introduced to a new character, text flashes on the screen with their name, year of demise, and cause of death. At first it seems like a very Scorsese joke, a reminder that the violent delights of association with the mob have violent ends. But looking back, those little epitaphs are a constant reminder of this movie’s main preoccupation: mortality.

The Irishman would have made a fine straight-ahead mob film – and perhaps it would have turned out like that had Scorsese got to make it back in 2007. It tells, over 209 measured minutes, the story of Frank Sheeran, the man who might have killed the labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa, whose disappearance in 1975 remains a mystery till this day. But Scorsese no longer seems interested in exploring codes of honour and brotherhood that have long since become genre tropes. Instead, he shows Frank (Robert De Niro) in two deeply invested relationships: with the truculent Hoffa (Al Pacino) and the soft-spoken mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci).

You knew Scorsese could make them fast, funny, austere, ferocious. Who knew he could make them tender? The gentleness is everywhere: in Pesci’s barely audible voice, in Hoffa’s habit of sleeping with the door slightly ajar. There’s a scene, some 40 minutes in, with Frank and his family at a bowling alley. Russell tells Frank he thinks his daughter, Peggy, is afraid of him. Frank brushes it off, saying she’s a little afraid of him as well. “She shouldn’t be afraid of you," Russell says, sounding genuinely pained. “You’ve got to be close to your kids." He calls Peggy over, tries to draw her out with a silly joke, fails, and lets her go back to her sisters.

There’s an echo here of Vito Corleone telling Johnny Fontane in The Godfather: “A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man." But that moment was wrapped in the codes of the mob and in ideas of what “real men" are like. It had no more warmth than, say, “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse", whereas the scene from The Irishman feels altogether more human. You forget in the moment that this isn’t a hitman and his boss talking, just one man gently admonishing another to be a better father.

Peggy keeps returning as a reproach to her father, the Irishman of the title, a World War II vet who starts carrying out hits for the Bufalino family. His closeness to Russell brings him to the attention of Jimmy Hoffa, whom he helps out with lesser crimes. Hoffa is as animated as Frank and Russell are reticent, but a friendship blooms here as well, with the Teamster boss enjoying having Frank around as a sounding board (Frank sleeping over at Jimmy’s house reminded me of Jacques Becker’s Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), another world-weary gangster film with a memorable scene involving two tough guys sitting in their pajamas talking).

The Irishman covers a lot of ground in its three and a half hours. It’s almost like Forrest Gump in the linking one man’s life with American history, taking in the brief reign of the Kennedys, the rise of Fidel Castro, and labour struggles in the US. Yet, despite the broad canvas, there’s no point at which it doesn’t feel intimate. By the end, as his friends start dying and Peggy cuts him out of her life, Frank is forced to confront whether he’s done something worth remembering in his time on earth, the irony being that the one important thing he did is something he can’t admit to publicly. Much has been made of Anna Paquin, as the adult Peggy, having barely anything to say, but the silent rebuke of the character extends past Frank to Scorsese himself.

You sense the director examining his legacy as the maker of deliriously entertaining gangster films, where you rarely see the toll on the families. There’s a short scene in which Hoffa’s wife – who's aware of the threats to her husband’s life – hesitates before turning the key in the ignition. There’s a cut, and we see the car explode. Another cut, and she’s still in car. She turns the key. The engine starts. It lasts just a few seconds, but it’s a moment of supreme empathy.

Since the film follows these characters over several decades, we see digitally de-aged versions of De Niro, Pesci and Pacino. It’s not too distracting, though I never got the sense of watching a man in his 30s, which is what Sheeran was when he started out with the Bufalinos. De Niro gives an intensely withdrawn performance, face wiped clean of emotion, corners of his mouth turned down. His turn started to pay off for me in the latter half of the film, after Hoffa’s relations with the mob began to fray and Frank finds himself caught in the middle. There’s a phone conversation or two that’ll work fine as Oscar reels, but my favourite De Niro moment comes later, a nod and a quiet “yep" standing in for an impossibly difficult decision.

If Sheeran seems to blend into the furniture, Hoffa appears to burst out of the screen. Hoffa’s disappearance is modern American folklore, and Pacino is appropriately larger-than-life. When he yells “cocksuckers" repeatedly at a roomful of employees, Rodrigo Prieto’s elegant lighting a counterpoint to the crassness of his language, it’s a reminder that no one rants quite like Pacino (his quieter moments include a killer reading of “It’s winter"). With Pesci working wonders with a few spare notes, De Niro riding a steady beat and Pacino taking off in solo flight, it’s like watching a great jazz trio perform.

At the end of Goodfellas, Henry Hill is upset that he has to live the rest of his life like a schnook. The Irishman shows us a vision of this, an aged gangster reduced to dipping a small piece of bread in grape juice so he can swallow it. They’ll remember this as the year Scorsese said uncomplimentary things about Marvel, then used the budget of one of their theme park rides to make a gangster film with barely any guns, a three-and-a-half hour meditation about a man who knew a man who was once famous for something.

This review appeared in Mint.