Netflix has wasted no time in looking ahead to the 2019 Oscars race. In a new video for their upcoming release The Irishman, the streaming service touts the Oscar-bait that's both behind the camera and in front of it for the true crime adaptation. Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese (The Departed) directs from a script by Oscar-winner Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List), with the cast of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel sharing four Oscar wins among them.

Now this new video isn't a trailer and doesn't even feature any footage. It does, however, feature some lines of dialogue exchanged between veteran cast members. But if you don't know why Pacino's Jimmy Hoffa is talking to De Niro's title character Frank Sheeran about painting houses, then you might want to brush up on the source material, Charles Brandt's #1 New York Times bestseller.

Scorsese's The Irishman arrives on Netflix and in theaters this fall. Check out the announcement video for The Irishman below:

If you need a little bit more to go on in order to decide whether or not you should check out The Irishman, more than the award-winning cast, writer, and director, then take a look at the synopsis for the source material (via Amazon):

Soon to be a NETFLIX film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, and written by Steven Zaillian.

 

Updated with a 57-page Conclusion by the author that features new, independent corroboration of Frank Sheeran's revelations about the killing of Jimmy Hoffa, the killing of Joey Gallo and the murder of JFK, along with stories that could not be told before.

 

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Image via Amazon

"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.

 

Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders including those of Joey Gallo and JFK, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that has become a true crime classic.

And for more of our long-running coverage on The Irishman and its road to development, be sure to check through these most recent write-ups linked below:

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