El toro salvaje

Bringing the life story of one of the roughest brawlers to ever step into the boxing ring, Raging Bull finds director Martin Scorsese & actor Robert De Niro teaming up once again to deliver yet another quality work but just like their other collaborations, it left me cold & indifferent to whatever it had in store and while I respect the legacy of this sports drama, I'm no fan of it.

Raging Bull chronicles the life of Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer whose rage, jealously & bouts of violent outbursts helps propel him to the top of the division but his inability to keep those vicious tendencies in check outside the arena leads him on a path of self-destruction, as he destroys his relationships with his wife & family over the years and wounds up all alone in his later life.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film is incredibly faithful to its source material and recreates the events with accuracy. Shot in black & white, which gives the picture a timeless quality, it illustrates the good, bad & ugly side of LaMotta with finesse and his arc is undeniably compelling. But he also comes off as an insufferable persona whose problems are of his own making which makes his downward journey all the more deserving.

What also affects the experience is that the story remains a monotonous ride for the entirety of its runtime. There is no escalation whatsoever whether we are witnessing LaMotta's boxing bouts or personal life. It's just a similar set of events repeated time n again for 125 minutes and that's not enough to keep the interest alive. It's brutal & violent in the ring but it fails to deliver the desired emotional impact because we are just not invested in his journey.

However, from a filmmaking standpoint, Raging Bull is an outstanding piece of work. The staging of events, the era-appropriate set pieces, the boxing choreography, the controlled camerawork, all of it exhibit an exactness that's quite commendable. And as for the performances, Robert De Niro leads the show from the front and delivers a smashing showcase as Jake LaMotta, and he is brilliantly supported by Joe Pesci & Cathy Moriarty who play his brother & wife respectively.

On an overall scale, Raging Bull is impressive in its craftsmanship but the narration is lacking in flavour and becomes repetitive after a while. Scorsese's direction & De Niro's commitment to his role certainly stand out but the longer it goes on, the more wearisome it becomes. Painting a faithful portrait of a character with no redeeming characteristics, Raging Bull is significant from a filmmaking viewpoint but there isn't much to gain by investing in someone who refuses to learn from his own mistakes.

The story of boxer Jake La Motta from his rising star in the 1940's through to his own downfall and his eventual living on the cabaret circuit in the present day.

Scorsese and De Niro – nobody needs say any more. Whether it be media satire (King of Comedy), small time thugs (Mean Streets) or real gangsta s**t (Goodfellas), the two rarely miss. This was one of their best to date (and probably for ever). The story is fascinating in itself but as an examination of masculinity it excels. The film allows us to watch a man who goes along with all the things he thinks make him a man – even when those characteristics and habits begin to destroy everything he has – his marriage, his realtionships and his career. Combine this with the gripping boxing tale of ups and downs and you have a film that never outstays it's welcome.

Scorsese is on top form – the use of black and white any have been a quality issue, but he uses it well. The fight scenes are other worldly – exaggerated to the extent that it is breathtaking and more shocking than previous boxing scenes in other movies. My favourite effect is the sound editing in the fights where silence and calm seem to descend just before key moments…..amazing. The relationship stuff is also gripping and Scorsese handles he human cost just as well as he shows us the physical beatings.

De Niro is amazing – the method stuff alone is great, but his whole performance is intense. Similarly Moriaty, Pesci and Frank Vincent are excellent – however they all stand in De Niro's shadow.

Overall – an excellent film on so many levels, as a story, as a examination of masculinity, as a sports film, as a lesson in direction and editing…..this excels in so many ways – may it never drop out of the top ten from the twentieth century!

An emotionally self-destructive boxer (Robert DeNiro) and his journey through life, as the violence and temper that leads him to the top in the ring, destroys his life outside it.

I do not want to be the one to say bad things about this film, because it is not a bad film. But most of it just did not resonate with me. The story is good, the acting is good, I love the use of the black and white cinematography at a time when color was far more dominant. But I cannot say this is one of the greatest movies ever made.

IMDb, AFI, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN and everyone else has this ranked so near the top of their list (IMDB actually only puts it in the top 100, which seems more fair). I am lost... it is a great movie, yes, but one of the greatest? No, it just is not true. DeNiro has done better, Pesci has done better, Scorsese has done better...

This is an interesting biopic and I can't fault the acting, directing or cinematography but Jake La Motta is too unlikeable and one-dimensional to be entertaining. It's probably a realistic and accurate depiction of the man and indeed many boxers but I simply can't find it in me to score more than a 7.

Easily one of the most powerful films I have ever seen. I have watched it at least ten times, and it only gets better and better with each viewing. Martin Scorsese is absolutely the greatest filmmaker of the last quarter century, and this film is his best. The story of how boxer Jake LaMotta watched his career and marriage crumble under the weight of his violent temper and deep-rooted misogyny is told with no punches pulled (excuse the bad pun), as Deniro (in what may be his best performance) and Scorsese unflinchingly explore what drove this man over the edge, and what ultimately may have pulled him back. The boxing scenes easily rank with the most brutal and violent moments ever put on film, shot in stark, unadorned black and white and utilizing unlikely sounds including shattering windows and animal cries to great effect. Thelma Schoonmaker's jarring, discordant editing in these scenes also deserves special mention. The scenes of domestic violence are not for the faint of heart, but there is really no other way to tell this story. If there is a more perfect exploration of why as men we act the way we do, then I'd love to see it, because this movie made me re-evaluate my life. 10/10