A Scorsese Film About A Lot More Than Just Boxing

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2016)

I'm no boxing fan so I can't honestly say that I was dying to see this movie until I learned that Scorsese himself is not a boxing fan but he wanted to tell this story so this intrigued me even more and after always hearing about the massive praise for Robert De Niro performance I have to say I was very impressed. I'm gonna start out by saying the cliché thing when talking about this movie, Robert De Niro is absolutely incredible in this film it's in my opinion the greatest performance he's ever given, through De Niros performance when see La Motta gradually becoming his title of being a "Raging Bull" and was a truly terrifying presence. The boxing scenes in this film are so real, Scorsese did such a good job directed this film he put you right in their to the point where you could feel the power of every punch and move made. Joe Pesci was so fantastic in this film he seemed like a real scumbag but was never over the top at his chemistry with De Niro was completely on point. La Mottas character arc was handled perfectly, you understood just how much of his humanity he was losing both physically and mentally to the point where you actually start to pity him while still fearing him at certain points. Now one of the most common things to find in a Scorsese film is a female love interest that comes to hate the protagonist and this film has this but works for this film as it added to character arc of La Motta and gave room for Cathy Moriarty to give such a great and damaged performance in this film. However if I am completely honest I don't quite like this film as much as everyone else does, I do have one of two minor issues with this film for one, I didn't think making this film Black and White really added anything to this film and at times was just distracting and I think that the portion of the film that focuses LaMottas success in the ring is to short, the film montages over his major successes and does subtract some What from the intensity of the final fight. However I do think that the last act of this film was very effective as it got away from the boxing and focused on the characters aftermath of his time in the ring and we go from despising LaMotta to as I said sympathising with him and I truly thought that De Niro pulled it of perfectly.
Raging Bull is a fantastic film, I don't quite think it's a masterpiece but it's got an incredible Robert De Niro performance, really intense and personal boxing matches and a perfect way of giving insight into its title character and giving him a complexity that makes him a better character.
86%/A-