Review: Raging Bull

The story of boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro), who was as raging in the ring as out, with a violent temper, massive insecurities, and insane jealousy that continually got the better of him and alienated those whom loved him best. Cathy Moriarty is his pretty young wife, whom he is viciously protective of, Joe Pesci is his long-suffering brother, and Frank Vincent gets the crap kicked out of him by Pesci for the first of their motion picture rivalries (continued in “Goodfellas” and “Casino”). Character actor Mario Gallo essentially gets the Mickey role from “Rocky”, and plays it well.

Unpleasant, but masterfully made and engrossing 1980 Martin Scorsese (“Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”, “Goodfellas”, “Mean Streets”) biopic of boxer Jake LaMotta, an utterly repugnant character one is surprised to endure the company of for around two hours. We never like Jake, but thanks to Scorsese (whose choice of B&W photography was a masterstroke, giving the non-boxing scenes a sort of beautiful Golden Era feel and giving the boxing scenes a gritty, realistic look), and a powerhouse De Niro performance (which won him an Oscar, partly due to his massive weight gain, but mostly due to his excellent thesping), not to mention great turns by Pesci and Moriarty, we can’t look away.

The highlight is the much-imitated/lampooned scene where a majorly paranoid Jake accuses his one true ally of sleeping with his gorgeous young wife. The screenplay is by Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver”) and Mardik Martin (“Mean Streets”) from the autobiography by LaMotta himself, along with Joseph Carter and Peter Savage. The utter repugnance of the main character keeps this from besting De Niro’s “The Deer Hunter”, but of the three big De Niro films (i.e. Not including either “Goodfellas”, or “The Untouchables” which may be his best films but he had supporting roles in them), this one’s certainly better than “Taxi Driver”, though I’d suggest De Niro’s performance in that film is actually the best De Niro performance of the three.

Brilliant cinematography by Michael Chapman (“The Fugitive”, 1978’s excellent “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”), was Oscar nominated along with the film itself (controversially bested by “Ordinary People”), actors Pesci and Moriarty (in one of the finest debuts in cinematic history, if you ask me, showing a level of maturity that a debuting actress still in high school probably shouldn’t be able to achieve), Scorsese as director, and a nomination for Sound. The only wins were for De Niro and his long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker.

Rating: B+