What'd I do? What'd I do?

Rating: 2/10 (28 June 2003)

Raging Bull masquerades as a boxing movie, trying to capitalize on Rocky popularity in 1980. It failed. The fundamental difference between both movies is that we care what happens to Rocky and want him succeed as the underdog, whereas we couldn't care less about what happens to an ungrateful bum called Jake LaMotta. The movie does nothing to bring you closer to LaMotta's character, it actually does the opposite and makes you loathe him. Why should we care what happens to him? Isn't that the point of a movie, to bring you closer to the characters and story?
That brings me to the boxing scenes. They are horrible. The blood is the worst I've seen in any movie - it just sprays everywhere like a geyser. Very realistic. We are not told the significance of any of Lamotta's fights, except the one where he's fighting a guy that his wife said was good looking. The boxing is pretty meaningless in the movie, so they should have just left it out. As it is, it was painful to watch.
The movie is shown in black and white. Did Scorcese think that we wouldn't be able to tell that it's set in the 40's if it was in color? The effect is that the movie just looks cheap. Couldn't afford color cameras or what?
It's also too long. Over 2 hours is a challenge for most to stay awake that long. I kept watching in hopes that the movie would stop sucking, but it never did. It sucked from start to finish.
DeNiro is a fine actor and plays his role well, as did Pesci, but even they couldn't do anything to save this sad excuse for a movie. There just isn't anything that draws you into the movie or makes you care about the characters in the slightest. What you end up with is a hollow movie in black and white about some bum that wasted his boxing talent. Big deal.
There's no actual ending to the movie either. It just kind of degenerates to the point where Lamotta lands himself in jail, and that's pretty much where it ends. I was half asleep by that point, so maybe there was a point to the movie and I missed it. But I doubt that.
After wasting over 2 hours watching this movie, I couldn't help but echo Lamotta's sentiments after he threw a fight:
"What'd I do? What'd I do?"
2 out of 10. 1 for DeNiro and 1 for Pesci. Both tried their best to save this movie, but couldn't.