Review of Raging Bull (1980) by Parker S — 16 Aug 2012

I've always known that Robert De Niro was a fantastic actor, I mean hes Robert De Niro. But I unfortanately had only seen dumb movies like Meet The Fockers to judge his talent. However, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver both show just how amazing De Niro is.

This movie contains what you would call a "power house" performance by him, and has an interesting story to boot. This bio-pic is shot in black and white, even though color was being used for over a decade, which gives it the documentary feel.

This film follows Jake LaMotta, a great boxer who is headstrong, overly jealous and an angry, often abusive man. You can tell from the beginning, when he flips a table because his wife isn't listening to him that he maybe isn't the most peaceful man.

He seems to always blame others for his mistakes, and it doesn't help that his brother is an encourager of his behavior. So he marries a younger, prettier woman who is known to sleep around. They never seem particularly in love.

They have a strange behaviors, that seem entirely unnatural and not like something you'd see from a married couple. The wife never smiles, she always seems unhappy. And Lemotta does as well, he never is satisfied, even after he wins the title.

Its a sad story, you can't help but root for Lemotta, but you watch him destruct right in front of you. He stops boxing, he buys a bar that he hopelessly makes his name to hold onto his relevance.

He gets fat, and evetnually ends up in jail where he realizes that he's screwed up and with a brilliant scene by De Niro, breaks down completely. His wife leaves him and his brother doesn't speak to him after he accused him of sleeping with his wife during his constant fits of extreme jealousy and suspicion.

De Niro performs all these emotions flawlessly, and the fighting scenes mixed with snapshots and real newspapers are clever and changes up the pace well. I really have no critisisms for this movie, its simply a superb film.