The whole isn't better than the sum of its constituent parts

Rating: 5/10 (13 June 2003)

I'm not the biggest fan of biographies, and I'm afraid this failed to turn the tide. In actual fact, it took me three attempts to watch it the whole way through (I fell asleep on the previous two occassions). Now I know that De Niro pulls off a fantastic La Motta, and there is no doubting Scorcese's directorial excellence, but this film just failed to engage me. It crawls along with a premise of some kind of story, but just bores. I can't really say anything more, other than this movie must be highly rated based on its constituent parts, because the whole certainly doesn't do anything for me.