Not about boxing but about rage and

Rating: Null/10 (21 September 2002)

Robert Deniro as Jake La Motta in Raging bull is a boxer who's violence in the ring spills out into his home life. This not a boxing movie per se but a character study of a near pshcotic pugilist. THis guy is just overflowing with testosterone and has a severly unbalanced mental state. Any thing that gets in his way he promptly smashes. Raging bull is a study of male rage which knows no bounds. Jake La Motta has a massive inferiority complex which drives him to the heights of brutality. IN the ring, Jake is the pride of his neighborhood. Outside the ring however he hurts his family and friends. He wants to maintain control over his wife and does so through bullying and phsical abuse. He realizes she is the better person and feels she must be having an affair whenever he is away. His performance in the ring takes away from his sex life with her. HE cannot lose control of the things he feels he has a right to. In the end who loses everything; his wife his brother's support, and his status as a boxer. WIth age his violent passions subdued in part by his great weight he becomes a mere shadow of his former self. In closing this is a brilliant picture that should have swept the 1980 academy awards. One of my alltime top ten.