Raging Bull (1980)

This film marked the third reunion between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro after “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver”. This time Scorsese invited Paul Schrader (‘Taxi Driver’) and Mardik Martin (‘Mean Streets’ ) to write the film script that is loosely based on La Motta’s novel. Raging Bull tells the true story based of Jack La Motta a middleweight boxer whose rage, violence and temper made him king of the ring while on the other hand destroying his life slowly. The greatest demon of all we have to fight is actually deep within all of us.

Impressive Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in a classical Scorsese movie.

CinemaSerf

6.0

Jul 22, 2022

Sorry but I was really unimpressed with this tale of the life of legendary boxer Jake La Motta. It's based on his own book, so it can be relied upon to be authentic, but somehow this Martin Scorsese effort just fell flat for me. The usual mix of Robert De Niro (La Motta) with probably the least versatile actor I have ever seen on screen, Joe Pesci, as his brother Joey; Cathy Moriarty as his wife Vickie and an ensemble of Italian American co-stars just reminded me of a very much weaker "Midnight Cowboy" (1969). Sure, that's not about boxing - but I'm not too sure how much this is about it, eith…