Movie · 1992 · Crime, History, Drama · 2h 20m · R · English
Curator score: 2.4/10 (37.5K ratings)
He Did What He Had to Do.
Overview
A portrait of union leader James R. Hoffa, as seen through the eyes of his friend, Bobby Ciaro. The film follows Hoffa through his countless battles with the RTA and President Roosevelt.
Ratings
Curator score: 2.4/10
IMDb: 6.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.23/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 52%
Metacritic: 50
TMDB: 6.3/10
Director
Danny DeVito
Production
Jersey Films, 20th Century Fox
Cast
Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Armand Assante, J.T. Walsh, John C. Reilly, Natalija Nogulich, Kevin Crowley, Robert Prosky, Kevin Anderson, Frank Whaley, John Judd, John P. Ryan, Nicholas Pryor, Paul Guilfoyle, Karen Young, Cliff Gorman, Joanne Neer, Joe Greco, Jim Ochs, Joe Quasarano
Curator Review
Verdict
A muscular, old-school political biopic with a big, volatile Jack Nicholson performance and Danny DeVito’s unusually forceful direction. It’s strongest as a portrait of labor power, ego, and violence, but the film can feel episodic and a little blunt compared with the best 90s prestige dramas.
Best for
viewers who like political biopics with a gangster-adjacent edge
fans of Jack Nicholson at his most unhinged and theatrical
people interested in labor history and union power struggles
audiences who enjoy 90s widescreen studio dramas with heavy dialogue
Skip if
you want a tightly structured, emotionally nuanced biopic
you’re looking for a mob movie with deep criminal-world detail
you prefer restrained performances and subtle filmmaking
you’ve already seen and loved more expansive takes on Hoffa’s story
Overview
Hoffa is a brash, sometimes unwieldy labor epic that treats union politics like a battlefield. Danny DeVito brings surprising heat and momentum to the material, pushing the film toward a rough, populist grandeur rather than polished prestige. The result is less elegant than it wants to be, but it has real force.
Worth noting
Jack Nicholson leans into Hoffa as a swaggering, volcanic force of nature, and the movie is most alive when it lets him dominate the frame. It’s not especially interested in tidy explanation or historical sweep; instead it plays like a series of confrontations, betrayals, and power plays, with violence always close at hand.
Bottom line
For some viewers, that makes it feel scattered or overblown. For others, especially anyone drawn to labor history, political melodrama, or 90s studio films with attitude, it’s a compelling oddity: messy, loud, and more alive than its reputation suggests.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Will Menaker (4★) · 209 likes
Never let a movie in your cab, in your house or in your heart... unless it is a friend of labor. Danny DeVito directs the shit out of this one.
Matt Singer (2.5★) · 179 likes
Revisiting The Irishman made me curious to go back and watch this biopic. It’s complementary to Scorsese’s film in a lot of ways. Their structures are similar but until Hoffa’s final act, they don’t cover much of the same ground. Scorsese is more interested in Hoffa’s relationship to the mob, while Danny DeVito (yes, this is somehow un film de Danny DeVito) focuses on Hoffa’s rise to power and his penchant for violence and anger. Pacino and Nicholson do seem… more Revisiting The Irishman made me curious to go back and watch this biopic. It’s complementary to Scorsese’s film in a lot of ways. Their structures are similar but until Hoffa’s final act, they don’t cover much of the same ground. Scorsese is more interested in Hoffa’s relationship to the mob, while Danny DeVito (yes, this is somehow un film de Danny DeVito) focuses on Hoffa’s rise to power and his penchant for violence and anger. Pacino and Nicholson do seem… more
matt lynch (3★) · 94 likes
"Huddie Ledbetter, also known as Leadbelly, said: You take a knife, you use it to cut the bread, so you'll have strength to work; you use it to shave, so you'll look nice for your lover; on discovering her with another, you use it to cut out her lying heart."
I'm not sure what the fuck that means either but my point is that this is way more of a David Mamet manifesto than a Jimmy Hoffa biopic.
Evasive (3★) · 75 likes
this is very much a "movie playing on TV that your dad falls asleep to" type of film
Hesse (3.5★) · 57 likes
They gave DeVito a lead balloon of a script and he alchemized it into a golden egg