It’s not often that popular culture, American history and trucking all combine to captivate the country. But they have in the new movie, The Irishman. I must confess that I had no idea what it was about before seeing it recently. I love Al Pacino (who doesn’t?), and this being another of director Martin Scorsese’s ‘quasi-mob’ movies, following Goodfellas and Casino, and with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci back to intimidate everyone in sight, what’s not to like? Maybe the running time of three and a half hours, but not much else.
Anyway, like most people, the name Jimmy Hoffa hadn’t meant much more to me than a controversial union leader who disappeared and was rumored to have been killed, then buried beneath Giants Stadium in New Jersey. What I did not know was that truckers benefitted probably more than any other group of workers from Hoffa’s efforts, via the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union.
Without giving anything away movie-wise, Pacino sparkles playing Hoffa. His charisma and intensity mirror what Hoffa was said to have been about, and he uses his ability to erupt into full-throated roar quite effectively.
We first see him in the movie at a union hall rally.
“If you got it, a truck brought it to you!” he exclaims loudly, with fists raised, to ecstatic followers. “If you got your food, your clothing, your medicine; if you got fuel for your homes, fuel for your industries, a truck brought it to you. The day our trucks stop, America stops!
“Big business is on the attack!,” he continues. “They’re coming, they’re coming hard and they’re coming fast! Big business and government are trying to sow the seeds of dissent among our ranks, at a time when we need unity! We need solidarity! I want to write it in the sky! Solidarity! Solidarity! Solidarity!”
Genius actor, genius union leader.
In real life, Hoffa had a major impact on truckers. He served as the union’s General President from 1957 to 1971.
The Teamsters website includes this in his biography:
‘Hoffa’s crowning achievement was the 1964 National Master Freight Agreement, which united more than 400,000 over-the-road drivers under one contract. Congressman Elmer Holland (D-PA) was quoted as saying, “Jimmy Hoffa has put more bread and butter on the tables for American kids than all his detractors put together.” ‘
It also pointed out other noble efforts he undertook.
‘He was ahead of his time in many ways,’ it noted. ‘He pushed for civil rights, supporting a young Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists years before they gained national attention. He refused to condone segregated local unions, even at the cost of losing organizing campaigns in the South.’
“If they want segregation, we don’t want them,” Hoffa said at the time. “We pride ourselves on the fact there are no Jim Crow locals in our union.”
The Teamsters organized truck drivers and warehousemen, first throughout the Midwest, then nationwide, according to Wikipedia. Hoffa played a major role in the union's skillful use of ‘quickie strikes,’ ‘secondary boycotts’ and other means of leveraging union strength at one company, to then move to organize workers, and finally to win contract demands at other companies. This process, which took several years starting in the early 1930s, eventually brought the Teamsters to a position of being one of the most powerful unions in the U.S.
De Niro plays the actual Irishman, Frank Sheeran, a truck driver who becomes close with Hoffa. They have some memorable scenes together, two all-time actors still at least close to the peak of their powers. Sheeran was featured in a book about Hoffa, who in addition to his union work got caught up in criminal activities and went to jail for several years before getting pardoned by President Richard Nixon in 1971.
Pacino’s rage at being targeted by Attorney General Robert Kennedy is palpable in the movie. He chews the scenery a bit, but that’s what the role calls for.
The circumstances of Hoffa’s death have never truly come to light. A Fox News report a few years ago backed up the version told in the movie, but nothing has even been proven conclusively.
Regardless, Hoffa’s decades-long positive impact on truckers is unquestioned. His son, James Hoffa, is the current General President of the Teamsters.
While The Irishman, like all movies, is entertainment, and Pacino as Hoffa is tremendous, it is the subject matter that takes it to another level and makes it a must-see for anyone ever involved in trucking.
