Hoffa (1992)

“Do not take no for an answer, because if you will not take no for an answer, eventually the answer come back yes.” – Bobby Ciaro

Number of Times Seen – Twice (22 Apr 2008 and 22 Dec 2020)

Brief Synopsis – Biography of the man ho helped create the teamsters union and how is politics and petty feuds led to his disappearance.

My Take on it – This is a film that I saw years ago and didn’t recall much about it besides the two main actors and the overall plot.

This was a movie directed by Danny Devito and it is quite clear that this is a subject quite near and dear to his own heart.

Unfortunately the way things are presented just don’t work well enough.

Both Devito and Jack Nicholson are great in this film even if certain aspects feel a bit too choppy due to the way that it is shown because of how they overplay these characters to a comical point.

The film does a nice job describing the various conflicts between the companies and the unions and that helps things a bit.

It too bad tho that they tell this story is a somewhat choppy fashion by having the story jump back and forth in time since it makes things feel far too disjointed.

The story itself is too long and there are far too any scenes that could have been trimmed because of how slow they move along.

The film’s depiction of the what happened to Jimmy Hoffa isn’t as believable as the scenario presented last year by Martin Scorsese in the film The Irishman (2019).

Bottom Line – It’s easy to see that this is a project dear to director Danny Devito’s heart, yet things aren’t presented well enough. Both Nicholson and Devito are superb in this film even if they both seem to slightly overplay these characters. The way that they describe the conflicts between the companies and the unions is fine, but the way that the story jumps far too often around time makes things feel quite disjointed along the way. The story drags out a bit too much and the 2 and a half hour runtime feels too much because there are scenes that could have been trimmed a bit. The film’s idea about what probably happened isn’t done as well as Scorsese did in The Irishman (2019) last year.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – With the exception of the exchange between Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Kennedy when Hoffa first enters and delays the start of the proceedings, virtually every word between Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Kennedy is taken verbatim from the transcripts of the hearing. A portion of that hearing is included in the Special Edition DVD. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)