In Martin Scorsese’s Netflix epic The Irishman, Robert De Niro’s controversial de-aging shows up in the film’s most debated moment: an allegedly middle-aged De Niro beating a grocer in broad daylight. The scene clearly echoes Goodfellas—yet many viewers say th
When Robert De Niro walks into a fight, you expect menace. In The Irishman, the movie asks you to expect something else too: a younger Frank Sheeran, delivered through de-aging technology meant to smooth out wrinkles and age spots.
That promise hits its hardest moment in an early scene where De Niro—visually rendered as “middle-aged”—kicks a grocer on a sidewalk. The scene doesn’t just put violence into the open; it places De Niro’s body on full display. including what the film can’t fully hide about age—elderly fragility and leg-shaking included. For many viewers. the grocer attack doesn’t land the way a similar beat would in a more physically matched performance. and that gap damages the credibility of the sequence—and. in turn. the impact of the movie’s larger. haunted project.
The stakes are already built into the way The Irishman is structured. It begins at the end. following union truck driver and mafia hit man Frank Sheeran as he stutters through the details of a 1970s road trip. then moves deeper through flashbacks. The story, like other Scorsese mob epics, is long. It doesn’t aim for the snappy, jagged energy of something like Goodfellas or Casino. Instead. it’s framed as an old man looking back—telling half-true stories and splitting his divided loyalties between Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and mafioso Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci. playing a real-life character as he did in Casino).
And that central trio matters to the debate about the grocer scene. because the film is also a reunion of sorts: director Martin Scorsese and star Robert De Niro reconnect after 2019’s The Irishman. with De Niro’s last collaboration with Scorsese before it coming in 1995’s Casino. Scorsese and De Niro’s on-screen history goes even further back, to 1973’s Mean Streets. Their cinematic partnership also includes Taxi Driver. Raging Bull. and Cape Fear—movies in which De Niro repeatedly found new modes. often disturbing personalities. including Frank. who frames his murders as regular old contract work.
The Irishman adds to that legacy by bringing back Joe Pesci from Casino. along with De Niro’s other familiar co-stars from mob-world cinema—while also adding Al Pacino working with Scorsese for the first time. De-aging becomes the technical bridge meant to handle all that time on screen. even though the movie spans from the mid-1940s to the 1990s and De Niro is in nearly every scene. During production. De Niro was 74. and that’s where the controversy begins: the de-aging technology can remove wrinkles and age spots. but it can’t fully erase the realities of age or the inconsistency some viewers notice.
This is where the grocer scene’s timing and presentation do real work. It’s not just random violence. The moment is driven by Frank discovering that his daughter Peggy (Lucy Gallina) has been harassed by a local grocer. The film stages the attack in broad daylight with a wide shot. letting the violence play out openly: Frank pushes his victim through a glass door and kicks him on the sidewalk.
That setup is also part of a bigger Scorsese pattern. The grocer beat functions as a trope in his mob movies—violence erupting in a mundane setting to show how organized crime coexists with polite society. The scene is specifically echoing a beat from Goodfellas. where Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) beats down a man who assaulted his girlfriend. In Goodfellas. the camera pans to follow Henry as he walks up. then holds still for about thirty horrific seconds as he attacks the man with a pistol. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus called that Goodfellas moment the most violent scene he’d ever filmed. according to Glenn Kenny’s making-of book Made Men.
In The Irishman. Frank’s attack is staged similarly in spirit—public. blunt. and centered on the shock of what happens next. But the physical mismatch is hard to ignore. As De Niro pushes his victim through a glass door and kicks him on the sidewalk. the effect doesn’t read as consistently horrifying. The camera stands still on De Niro shuffling. without much drive. and the violence can come off more sad and pathetic than frightening—something that might even be deliberate. The film. after all. wants you to see Frank as an old man. and it wants you to sit with the ravages of age and the regrets of a life built around violence.
What ultimately anchors the scene isn’t only Frank’s ability to act in public. It’s Peggy’s recognition of who her father truly is. The movie shows Peggy eventually growing into a young woman played by Anna Paquin. and her suspicion and fear of her father become the moral engine of the film. The final note of the beat down—when Frank steps on the grocer’s fingers—is only heard as the movie cuts to Peggy’s reaction. which sells the horror of the moment. Even so. the de-aging controversy lingers for many viewers because it’s visible in the body language before the cut. including the way De Niro’s leg wobbles.
That’s also why critics argue the scene could have been filmed differently to accommodate De Niro’s age. But switching the filming approach would have undercut the intention of The Irishman. Believability wasn’t the goal; the movie’s aim is to spend a lifetime with De Niro as Frank Sheeran. to show the ravages of age and the regrets of a life of violence. and to underline the malleability of memory—effectively summing up Scorsese’s career. Casting others to play the middle-aged versions of De Niro or other characters would have diminished the theme. even if it might have made the grocer beating more believable.
By the time The Irishman reaches its moral center. the grocer scene feels less like a technical test and more like part of the film’s emotional argument: the violence is real. but so is the distortion that comes with time. For some viewers, the de-aging holds enough to make the moment matter. For others. it breaks at the exact point it’s meant to complete the illusion—making this. of all scenes. the one that stays in the argument.
The Irishman Robert De Niro Martin Scorsese Netflix de-aging Joe Pesci Al Pacino Goodfellas grocer scene Peggy Jimmy Hoffa Russell Bufalino