The film features John C. Reilly, Robert Prosky, Kevin Anderson, Armand Assante, and J. T. Walsh in supporting roles.

[3] On July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa and his longtime friend Bobby Ciaro are impatiently waiting in the parking lot of a roadhouse diner.

Moving in vignettes from when he was an International Brotherhood of Teamsters union organizer working the various trucking firms and laundries around Detroit, Hoffa's life over the four preceding decades gradually unfolds.

During a Teamsters strike that quickly turns into a street brawl with non-union workers, Hoffa is taken to see Detroit Mafia's top boss, Carl D'Allesandro, with the Italian-American Ciaro acting as interpreter.

Hoffa surrenders to federal officials and receives a long sentence while Connelly's uncle, Frank Fitzsimmons, assumes control of the Teamsters.

D'Allesandro advises him to have the Teamsters endorse Richard M. Nixon for president in 1968 in exchange for Hoffa receiving a presidential pardon.

Hoffa becomes furious and meets with D'Allesandro, asking him to have Fitzsimmons killed, resulting in a failed attempt to assassinate him with a car bomb.

In 1989 Joe Isgro, Edward R. Pressman, and Chaldecot Chubb purchased the rights to Moore's screenplay and hired David Mamet to rewrite it for $1 million.

Jack Nicholson was hired to play Hoffa after Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro also auditioned.

The location of the murder is unknown, but any violence in the parking lot would have attracted attention from potential witnesses and left evidence that could have been used by police.

[3] The film received mixed reviews, with criticism being directed at for historical inaccuracies and its depiction of Hoffa in a heroic, even sympathetic light.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Jack Nicholson embodies Hoffa with malevolent relish, but a dearth of meaningful insight knocks this crime epic off the mark by a nose.

"[13] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film 3.5/4 stars and said, "In the more ambitious Hoffa, Nicholson plays the Detroit street fighter who rose from the ranks of trucker and labor organizer to build the Teamsters into the nation's most powerful union.

The boldness of director Danny DeVito's violent epic is matched by Nicholson's astonishing physical and vocal transformation into Jimmy Hoffa.

"[14] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote: "Hoffa is an original work of fiction, based on fact, conceived with imagination and a consistent point of view."

"[15] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "It is a laconic, enigmatic piece of work, displaying the grace with spoken language that marked Glengarry Glen Ross but troublesome in terms of structure and character development.

"[17] David Thomson states that the film was terribly neglected, since Nicholson portrayed one of his best screen characters, someone who is "snarly, dumb, smart, noble, rascally—all the parts of 'Jack'".

[18] Hoffa earned two Oscar nominations for Cinematography and Makeup, losing to A River Runs Through It and Bram Stoker's Dracula.