Strong De Niro - weak script

Rating: Null/10 (23 September 2003)

This is clearly De Niro's best performance. He was the driving force behind this movie and talked Scorsese into it. This is also the first time that he worked with Joe Pesci. So it's a good idea to watch this before you go on to Goodfellas or even Casino, where they've also teamed up. Watching these two fine actors is more than delightful. Hell, they could do American Pie 8 and it would still be worth watching. Most of De Niro's and Pesci's lines are ad-libbed and improvised. That's how good they relate to each other. And Scorsese gives them the freedom to do so.
The downside of Raging Bull is that the script is very uneven and has a timing problem. Since the studio rejected the script several times De Niro and Scorsese did some rewriting and later on got Paul Schrader into the boat to straighten things up. Schrader later said, that at the end not much of his draft was left in the script.
And this is pretty obvious when you watch the movie. Aside from the scripts it is a technically brilliant movie with fascinating shots and a wonderful musical score.
I love it, despite it's obvious weakness.