'The Irishman' review: The mob's greatest hits, in a somber key

The Irishman is a monumental, elegiac tale of violence, betrayal, memory and loss

One of the canonical moments in the work of Martin Scorsese — and, therefore, in all of American cinema — is the two-and-a-half-minute sequence in Goodfellas sometimes known as “the Copa shot”. In a single, unbroken take, the camera follows Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta) and his sweetheart, Karen (Lorraine Bracco), from Henry’s car, through the kitchen and into the hurly-burly of the nightclub, accompanied by the sound of the Crystals singing “Then He Kissed Me”. For Henry, an up-and-coming mobster, the arrival at the Copa is a pure and potent dose of gangster glamour.

The opening shot of The