The Most Controversial Scene in Robert De Niro's 95% RT Netflix Mob Epic Works, Actually

Published Jun 13, 2026, 9:23 AM EDT

The Irishman technically spans from the mid-1940s to the 1990s, and De Niro is in nearly every scene throughout the film. The actor was 74 at the time of production, leading to the adoption of controversial “de-aging” technology, which could clean up wrinkles, age spots, and anything else that might make you think you’re looking at a 74-year-old man. But the realities of age and the inconsistency of the visual effects led to an early scene that damaged the movie’s credibility to many: an allegedly middle-aged De Niro kicking a grocer on the sidewalk. We see all of De Niro’s body, including some elderly fragility and leg-shaking, and the scene’s failure to hit its necessary effect might have weakened the impact of the whole film.

'The Irishman' Gave Viewers a Young De Niro Who Wasn't

The Irishman begins at the end, with union truck driver and mafia hit man Frank Sheeran (De Niro) stuttering through the details of a 1970s road trip and then going back even further through multiple layers of flashbacks. Like a lot of Martin Scorsese mob epics, it’s a long movie, but it lacks the trademark snappy, jagged energy of something like Goodfellas or Casino. Instead, it’s a haunting story of an old man looking back, telling half-true stories and recalling 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). Unlike, say, The Godfather Part II (which also starred Pacino and De Niro), The Irishman didn’t recast for the younger versions of its characters. One unintentionally funny bit has Pesci calling a visibly elderly De Niro “kid.”

Because Scorsese and De Niro’s history of collaboration goes back to 1973’s scrappy gangster classic Mean Streets, the passage of time is visible in their work. In Mean Streets, De Niro played Johnny Boy, a wildly energetic screw-up whose recklessness drags Charlie (Harvey Keitel) and others into a spiral of unpaid bills and violence. And movies like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Cape Fear took their partnership to new and deeper levels, with De Niro finding new modes and often disturbing personalities (Frank, who frames his murders as regular old contract work, may be the most disturbing). Viewers who’ve seen Scorsese’s other movies know what young Robert De Niro looked like – and it’s not how the de-aging effects make him look in The Irishman. There’s a disconnect, and it’s not helped by scenes like him attacking the grocer.

The Grocer Scene Paid Homage to Martin Scorsese's 'Goodfellas'

The grocer scene in The Irishman is actually a trope in Scorsese’s mob movies: the explosion of violence in a mundane setting to show how organized crime coexists with polite society. Specifically, it’s echoing a scene from Goodfellas, in which Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) beats down a man who has assaulted his girlfriend. In the Goodfellas scene, the camera pans to follow Henry walking up to the man, and then stands still for about thirty horrific seconds as he attacks him with a pistol. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus called it the most violent scene he’d ever filmed, according to Glenn Kenny’s making-of book Made Men.

In The Irishman, Frank (who by this point has been welcomed into the Bufalino crime family) is driven to violence by finding out his daughter Peggy (Lucy Gallina) has been harassed by a local grocer. Like Goodfellas, this scene takes place in broad daylight, with a simple wide shot that lets the violence play out in sickening detail. But a 70-something De Niro is going to have a different physicality than young Ray Liotta, and as he pushes his victim through a glass door and kicks him on the sidewalk, the effect isn’t exactly horrifying. The camera stands still on De Niro shuffling, without a lot of drive. While his performance in most of the movie is able to be threatening because of his dull affect and use of guns, this scene comes off more sad and pathetic—which might have been the point.

Why the Scene (and the De-aging) Works for 'The Irishman'

The focus of the scene is not just on Frank’s ability to act violently in the public eye, but on Peggy’s recognition of the man her father truly is. We see Peggy eventually grow into a young woman (Anna Paquin), whose suspicion and fear of her father becomes the moral engine of the movie. And the final note of the beat down, in which 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 if De Niro’s leg wobbles a bit beforehand).

While critics of the movie suggest Martin Scorsese could have filmed the scene in a different manner to accommodate De Niro’s age, that would have gone against the intention of the scene. Same with using a stunt double and plopping De Niro’s face on it. Believability wasn’t the goal of The Irishman. It was to spend a lifetime with De Niro as Frank Sheeran, to show the ravages of age and the regrets of a life of violence, as well as the malleability of memory, effectively summing up Scorsese's career. Casting others to play the middle-aged versions of him or other characters would have diminished the effectiveness of the theme, even if it made scenes like the grocer beating more believable.