Devastating and brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (6 May 1999)

Raging Bull is a savage, unrelenting, and unforgiving film. It would simply be too depressing if it were not for two small, subtle hints (a quote from the Bible flashed on the screen, and Jake LaMotta's name in the credits) that the real-world LaMotta himself has come to recognize his failings. As it is, Raging Bull must certainly be counted as one of the ten or twenty greatest American films of the century.
The scene where Jake pries the rhinestones from his champion's belt, only to have a pawnbroker tell him that the stones (and now the belt) are worthless, is probably the most depressing scene from any movie I've ever seen.