I’ve never seen a Scorsese film, barring The Wolf of Wall Street, before this one. Which I think is relevant to mention, because from reading around the wider context of this film it’s clear to me that it’s in dialogue with his previous mob-based films. I have little familiarity with the three main players – De Niro, Pesci, and Pacino. In fact, I had no idea who Pesci or Pacino were in the film until I researched it afterwards.

So I review this film on its own merits. Which has its positives, I suppose.

I enjoyed this film very much.

I generally divide films in to two genres – narrative-based films, where some kind of quest or goal is established fairly early on – think the acquisition of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark – and pursued until the climax. We generally know what’s happening in those films at any given moment – we know the stakes, we know the plan, we know the conflict.

The other type of film is what I call a tapestry film. There are probably other and better names for it, but that’s how I think of them. In these films we watch the progression of somebody’s life, and the point of the film doesn’t become apparent until towards the end. In this case we follow the life of Frank Sheeran, from the ages of about 24 to 80.

And what a life. Frank begins the film as a truck driver before becoming involved with the Bufalino crime family, assuming the role of gun for hire. He gains seniority and respect while working with Teamster and close friend Jimmy Hoffa, whom he is eventually ordered to murder. And he does so. With reservation and hesitation, but, in the end, with unquestioning loyalty.

The last half an hour of the film reveals, as it were, the point. And the point is that there was no point.

This is a more introspective film than it might first appear. The framing device – an elderly Frank proudly telling this story from a care home – makes us look the other way as the film smuggles in its primary theme; that, at the end of the day, it was all for nothing. And that isn’t meant in a nihilistic way – quite the opposite, in fact.

Frank’s life is defined by unquestioning service. From his wartime exploits through to driving trucks, then to committing hits for the mob, his actions are directed by somebody else. The road is laid out for him already. He rarely questions – he is, instead, always following orders. Orders are an ontological good unto themselves. Even when he is directed to do something he really doesn’t want to do, he doesn’t put the gun down or say no. Because the orders matter more than Jimmy’s convictions, morality, or motivations.

So we come to the last half hour. Frank struggles with mobility while Joe Pesci’s Russ is confined to a wheelchair. Frank has been cut off by his daughter, and everyone he used to know has died, often violently. It all comes back to that one word – why? What was it all for, if this is Frank’s twilight age? He could have been surrounded by family, but his actions have ensured that he could never be.

The tapestry of Frank’s life comes to a close. We understand that to watch Frank’s rise to prestige is to watch an unfulfilling, pointless life. He questions a nurse in the care home – she has never heard of Jimmy Hoffa. The climax of his life, the sheer drama of him being directed to murder his closest friend – forgotten within Frank’s lifetime.

All for nothing.