It’s finally coming.
“The Irishman,” the highly anticipated film directed by Martin Scorsese which shot numerous scenes in Southwest Brooklyn and put out a casting call locally for Italian-Americans who wanted to be in the film as extras, finally has a release date, Sept. 27 at the 57th New York Film Festival.
A trailer was just released for the movie, which centers on former hitman and World War II veteran Frank Sheeren and the disappearance of legendary union boss Jimmy Hoffa, and which will also be available to view this fall via Netflix, which produced it.
The film — which reunites the Academy Award-winning director with actors such as Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, and pairs him with Al Pacino, who plays Hoffa — also includes local actors Dominick LaRuffa, Jr., James Ciccone and Al Linea, with portions filmed in such local landmarks as Dyker Heights’ New Corner Restaurant, which can be seen in the trailer.
Scorsese himself made a trip to New Corner. “He wanted to visualize how this scene was going to play out, what needed to be done in terms of changes to the restaurant, to make it look right for the scenes that they wanted,” said Joe Colandrea, director of marketing for the eatery as well as son of the owner, Vincent Colandrea, following the shoot. “From there, it just took off.”
For three days in 2017, the restaurant was transformed into a set for the movie about a mob hit man who recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Hoffa. Both De Niro and Pesci appeared in the New Corner scenes.
For LaRuffa, who plays Colombo Son #1, according to IMDB, the film appearance was a big deal.
“This was something I fought pretty hard for,” LaRuffa told this paper. “Being directed by Martin Scorsese is and probably will remain the highlight of my career. As he walked to his trailer at the end of our first day, which was my first day shooting and the very first day of the whole production, he pointed at me and said ‘Good work, kid.’ And then, I died.”
Linea portrays Momo Giancana, according to IMDB. “I’m a kid from Brooklyn who wanted to make movies with either Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino or Pesci, and to be in a movie with all of them is just amazing,” he said during a 2017 interview with this paper. “If I never make another movie again, I accomplished my goal. I got to work in the same film as them.”
To view the trailer, go to http://bit.ly/2Mt0LRZ.