When Did The Mob Decide To Whack Jimmy Hoffa? | The Irishman Explained

[Music] Martin School says he's the Irishman Stars Robert De Niro Joe pescue and Al Pacino and follows mob Hitman Frank Sheeran Sheeran works for mafia boss Russell buffalino and eventually is sent to work for Jimmy Hoffa head of the Teamsters Union who he develops a close relationship with Hoffa has a business relationship with the gangsters involved in the unions the mob takes cash from Hoffa through his Teamsters pension fund for their projects such as Las Vegas casinos in return Hoffa as well as charging interest from the loans he gives out used the mob's muscle to take on big business who hired goons to shake up strikes offer organized these are just a few ways in which Hoffa and the mob work together but crucially the Teamster's pension fund loans were dished out on Hoffa's terms when Hoffa is sent to jail for fraud he leaves Frankfurt Simmons in charge but Fitzsimmons assumes more and more control over the union putting his people in positions of power and pushing out half a loyalist the mob takes a liking to having fits in charge of the teamsters as he's a pushover and they can squeeze more money out of him after five years though Hoffa is released from prison and fights to Take Back Control of his Union interestingly something the Irishman leaves out is that a condition of Hoffer's early release which the mob may or may not have had something to do with was a clause that he was not to rerun for presidency of the teamsters for a number of years and he fights this decision too in any case in addition to preferring fits anyway the mob becomes irritated with Hoffa's rhetoric in public saying on TV and to reporters that Frankfurt Simmons has handed over control of the teamsters to the Mob he threatens to release documents and files incriminating gangsters and eventually the bosses have enough and Frank Sheeran is sent to whack Jimmy his close friend Now videos on the Irishman tend to bring up similar comments that are repeated over and over but in this video we're not here to talk about the real history of the Irishman and whether it's a true story was it really the mob who took out Hoffa did Frank Sheeran really kid Hoffa was DeNiro miscast Ed Sheeran and too old to play the role was the Irishman a boring over long film well that's not what we're discussing today what I wanted to talk about in this video was just when did the mob decide to whack off her in other words at what point in the film was the decision made to take Hoffa out it sounds like a simple question but it doesn't seem to necessarily be a concrete answer there are tensions between Hoffa and the mob all throughout the second half of the film after Hoffa comes out of the can Frank tune Appreciation Night is full of uneasy scenes there's the build up to Bill buffalino's daughter's wedding with the whole thing about getting offered come to the wedding so the situation can be sorted out but then all of a sudden in a scene between Russell tells shiram that they did all they could for the man and the next morning in so many words tells him he will be killing him so when exactly was this decision made there seems to be several places in the film's timeline where the okay could have been given could it even be that it was as early as Jimmy Hoffa and Tony Pro's first altercation in the can in that as soon as Jimmy and Tony Pro fought Pro went to the phone and demanded that Hoffa had to go you wouldn't put it past him given how volatile Pro was and that he hated Hoffa here is Jimmy a mob associate a non-made man and he dares to insult him with his you people remark and then lays hands on him during the fight surely he went straight to his boss Fat Tony Salerno and asked for James riddlehoffer on a spit of course this request would be laughed Away by solono if Tony Pro did ask for it even if done later when Jimmy and pro have their second fight Jimmy asks Frank if Russell would be willing to make Pro go away but Shirin says it's unlikely if Jimmy is able to ask for pro to be whacked at this stage of the story Pro would surely be doing the same thing asking Fat Tony for the okay but fat Tony's attitude during the meeting with buffalino and Sheeran the first one highlights that there's no way the killing of Jimmy Hoffa was seriously considered at this point he looks bored and mildly irritated with the beef between Jimmy and pro referring to it as [ __ ] however this is completely different the second time buffalino and Shuan take a trip to East Harlem when they're watching Hoffa on the TV saying Fitzsimmons has sold the teamses out and the mob controls the union he openly says billions of dollars have been given to known racketeers and makes the Omniverse declaration that it's time for the rats to abandon ship Salerno is naturally Furious aggressive in this second scene and asking if Hoffa is serious maybe he means what he says he can't talk that way it's no [ __ ] good as he says it says something about the gravatar of Hoffa's statement that you've got two mob bosses arguing about it each on the flip side of the argument the respected Buffalo Lino trying his best to claim Hoffa is just saying whatever he needs to say for his re-election campaign but if Hoffa planned to make good on his promise it would spell serious trouble for the mob and Fat Tony wastes no time in telling shiran that maybe someone should tell Hoffa to cash in his retirement check and enjoy his life with his family essentially he sends the message to Hoffa to retire to walk away already things are serious lesser men would have already been whacked after what Hoffa said the mob takes no chances when it comes to rats and snitches the real-life case of Joseph alachi may have been on fat Tony's mind when he watched Hoffa openly announced the mob's involvement in the teamsters monetary funds it reminds me of a scene in Casino where mob boss rimogaji advises Andy Stone to tell Sam Ace Rothstein that maybe he should walk away and as Stone tells Ace when the old man says maybe not only should you quit you should run so a clear warning had been sent to Hoffa though it's clear no actual death warrant had been signed in spite of the rising tensions with the constant Cuts back and forth between Hoffa and Chiron and Fat Tony meeting with Sheeran and buffalino at this point in time Jimmy failed to understand the gravity of the situation as shown in the scene between him and shirun where he asks who said he should walk away he first asks if it was Russell then says of course it wasn't Russ he assumes it's tiny Pro until Sheeran says it's Salerno Hoffa is visibly taken aback there's no Exposition here to tell us how important and high up Salerno is when Hoffa's reaction shows he wasn't expecting Salerno to say such a thing and has for the first time realized that his problems and the things he has said on TV might be a bit more damaging than he first realized perhaps we too as the audience unless you knew the story going into the film didn't understand the gravity of the situation until this scene the next time we see Salerno he is so angry that he has offer reminded that Joey Gallo like to make a lot of noise as well and even more of a direct threat as of course Gala was taken out by the mob in fact shiron himself did the deed in the film but I think we can safely say that no one had stamped the approval on Jimmy's murder just yet however this may have been because of buffalino's influence downplaying Jimmy's actions and fighting his Corner who knows without Russell's support Jimmy may have already been a dead man by this point in the film Frank's human Appreciation Night is very telling and interesting Salerno and Jimmy hilariously stare each other out but fat Tony's conversation with Ross reveals that Jimmy has been holding up the mob's loans if there's one thing the mafia can't stand it's when you light in their pockets and on top of that Jimmy has said he's going to call in the old loans and he's taking them over if they aren't paid straight away even buffalino is alarmed repeatedly asking solono if he sure Jimmy said that because of course calling in the old loans and taking over if people aren't able to pay has huge implications the ever calm buffolino talks face to face with Hoffa for the first and only time in the film trying to gently nudge Jimmy into retirement but Jimmy understood what was happening understood that he was being threatened and the mob was basically telling him to back off but was sending the best person to go in and tell him directly when the meeting ends buffalina looks insulted Furious even perhaps this is where he turns where he thinks [ __ ] this and no longer defense offer and if it's up to a vote take offer out he's no longer on Hoffa's side and before the night ends Jimmy is well aware his life has been threatened but it seems he is now deluded and cannot conceive of the idea that the mob would ever take him out when Hoffa is Dancing with Peggy the camera whip pans to Pro Salerno and buffalino looking Sinister watching offer this could easily be the moment where the decision is made that Hoffa will die the dynamic between the three is clear even though we can't hear what's being said Pro is trying his best to convince the other two buffalino is the voice of reason and Fat Tony is simply glaring at hover thinking rationalizing coming to a decision by the time they get up it looks like they're all on the same page and something has been agreed even Peggy sees something evil is stirring this is a good as part as any in the film to think that this is where the mob decided enough was enough and to whack offer it makes subsequent scenes more Sinister for example in the next scene Russell gives Frank the ring which he was gonna give him anyway but maybe Russell was using it as a way to sway shirun now that the decision has been made to tell Frank you're with us not him you're with me it's a touching gesture giving Frank the ring but you can't help but think it's also a manipulation tactic if true this makes the rest of the series of events even more sad as it means all of Sheeran's efforts were in vain as the hit had already been agreed Russell tells Frank it's what it is it's what they want it's how far things have gotten so it's not certain that a hit had been placed but it's now open that this is what the mob wants and it's really only buffolino in Hoffa's corner but as we've seen from the previous scene with Jimmy and Russell Russell ain't too hot about Jimmy right now either even if he just made a lost ditch effort to mend things of course if the hit had been agreed by this point it does beg the question as to why Russell would still tell shiran to speak to Hoffa maybe there was hope to reverse the decision maybe it was so that he Russell would look like he tried to the very end to save Frank's friend or maybe it was to show everyone that Frank was trying to get Jimmy to calm down that he played his part and as such should not be included in the murder which was very much a possibility especially with Frank's earlier speech publicly declaring being behind Jimmy all the way it's not as if Russell could have told Frank right there that Hoffa was going to die there was too much risk when he eventually told him there was no way out for offer unless Frank tips him off and the mob would know about it and Frank would also go the wedding we're told was supposed to be a peace Mission the mob may be itching for Hoffa's death but if the okay hadn't already been given surely it was when Hoffa all of a sudden refused to come what more are we supposed to do they must have thought he's demonstrating a failure to show appreciation by refusing to sit down and the mob must have I've been frustrated by this point they didn't need him anyway they had fixed it was out of respect for old Arrangements that Hoffa was still standing even though Hoffa turned down the sit down Sheeran tells a bewildered buffalino that he's thinking about it and McGee would surely have read between the lines after all what is there to think about so you can't accuse the mob of not trying unless of course the hit had already been agreed to at Frank's shoe and appreciation night and sinisterly all this talk about arranging a sit-down was actually an attempt to arrange Jimmy's murder Russell makes a few mysterious phone calls during their car trip with Sheeran standing a distance away too far to hear what the conversation is about at one point buffalino comes back from a call and tells children to call Jimmy saying he said he was going to think about it perhaps buffalino had just gotten off the phone with Salerno or Tony Jax who were deliberating asking buffalino is he gonna sit down or not or maybe even just whack the guy and be done with it buffalino was Hoffa's main line of defense but much less so than before there's two ways to look at this either the tensions are Sky High and everyone is anxious to see what Jimmy will decide alternatively Hoffa has already been mocked for death in fact that very phone call that buffalino had made may have been the final okay on Hoffer's life and it's why buffalina wanted to know Jimmy's plans so they can arrange the hit so when she run phones Hoffa who all of a sudden has agreed to a meeting organized by Tony Jacks Sheeran was inadvertently setting up the hit very good as buffalino remarks when learning Hoffa has agreed to the sit down there's no subsequent calls so by this point buffalino must know that Hoffa is a dead man walking Tony Jax is Tony Pro's cousin who reports to Tony Salerno who will be in contact with Russell buffalino the chain of command were all in on the no I wonder if things would have been different if Jimmy had agreed to the the sit down earlier when he turned it down maybe the mob got frustrated and said just kill him now that Jimmy had agreed to the sit down and taken the bait Russell can reveal to Frank that there's been a change and that we did all we could for the man the facade is lifted there was never any sit down Hoffa arranged his own death buffalina was quite aggressive during the cornflakes scene more can be said in another video analysis but I imagine buffalino had to fight to keep Shirin alive and meanwhile shiran is all Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy so he was irritated at first at shirun in full employer mode until he dropped the pretense and spoke to Frank as a friend so all in all from what we see in the film I think there's two moments that stick out as to when a hit was sanctioned against Hoffa the scene with Pro Salerno and buffalino talking at Frank's shoe in Appreciation Night and the second possibility is when buffalino has the second phone call I'm not sure which I personally go for maybe the shot of the trio but there is perhaps a bias there because it's my favorite shot of the film but it does make sense story wise and the way the subsequent scenes with shiran rafalino and their wives play out all slow and deliberate give off the feeling that something is off something is not quite right then again maybe all involved really did give it their best shot with the Jimmy and when he refused to come to the wedding for the sit down they just thought let's get rid of this guy so when do you think the mob decided to kill Hoffa let me know in the comments below and be sure to let me know if you'd like to see more videos on the Irishman and thanks for watching

Channel: CineRanter

Views: 56,518

Keywords: the irishman, martin scorsese, al pacino, robert de niro, joe pesci, jimmy hoffa, jimmy hoffa and the mob, frank sheeran and jimmy hoffa, russell buffalino

Id: 14DPe7FDcDw

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2023