Intense Rage ....

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 2007)

Scorsese has a talent for making movies depicting "blue-collar" rage - and this is one of those movies. It's a very good movie, but I'm not sure what I got out of it.
Basically, the movie is about the tumultuous emotional life of 1940s middle-weight boxer Jake LaMotta. The movie roughly covers the last 10 years of his boxing career to his early retirement years.
Though it is based on a famous boxer, it is not really a boxing movie. This movie is about the internal fury burning within the boxer and how it affected his immediate family members.
The performances are outstanding: De Niro (LaMotta) and Pesci (his brother) played their roles with visible intensity. Moriarty, (his wife) also did a great job, though her role was a little more one-dimensional.
I'm not sure what I got out of this movie after watching it. Yes, it's intense and well-acted and the plot is engaging - but I don't feel I would have missed anything by not seeing it. Maybe one had to see it when it came out in 1980.
In any case, if your a fan of Scorsese or any of the actors, definitely watch this. For everyone else, it's got all the right elements of a good movie, but not as much to think about or marvel at as in other Scorsese films.