Toro scatenato

There's very little to like about the character portrayed here by Robert De Niro, other than to acknowledge that he took advantage of one of the few things he was good at i.e. thumping anyone who enraged him regardless of whether they were in the boxing ring or not.

The power of the movie comes from De Niro under the direction of Martin Scorsese, providing a wholly convincing performance of the furious, bitter, bovine pugilist with serious psychological issues. It is one of the truly great performances of that decade, perhaps of all time, nailing the establishment of a character it's genuinely difficult to have any empathy or sympathy with. If you dig deeper, you will not be surprised to find a serial misogynist who married seven times and who beat all of his wives. If this is your type of hero you might like to reconsider how you got there. If De Nero, Scorsese and cinema are your heroes, not too many will disagree with that.

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...

... in that he lost everything he ever had by age 40, although Kane didn't die broke by any means. An athlete expects to lose their prowess over time, but Jake lost everything else too. He did have a pretty good second act, partially and ironically because of this film, and even managed to live to age 95 and not die alone. That's an unexpected outcome when you first see him at age 42.

It's really interesting how this film is set up. You first see LaMotta (Robert De Niro) at age 42 in 1964 - bloated, working in a dive of a nightclub, practicing the third-rate act that keeps him fed and off the streets. His name and the year are shown in print. Then immediately you switch to LaMotta in 1941, in the ring, at age 19. Granted, Robert De Niro at age 36 when he made this does NOT look anything close to a teenager, but then there has to be some dramatic license.

This first fight shown in 1941 tells you what you need to know about the kind of world Jake inhabits. There are the violent punches of the fight followed by a decision against Jake with which the audience strongly disagrees. Fans throw things - everything from popcorn to chairs. Fights break out. A woman is trampled in the chaos. And then the organist tries to calm things down by playing the Star Spangled Banner. The audience does not come to attention.

So you've seen the end and the beginning of the story. It's fascinating and grabs one's attention, and even though you can look up and see how the actual Jake LaMotta's life went in those 23 years, the movie gives you all of the intimate scenes telling you the how. Jake craves love, food, recognition - he has a tremendous appetite for all of these things but he's also tremendously lacking in confidence and self control and strikes out violently as a result. It really is a fascinating portrait.

The routine use of black-and-white film to make movies seems to have ended in the mid-sixties, probably killed off by the advent of colour television. Since then black-and-white has been used very sparingly; even Polanski's `Chinatown', obviously conceived as homage to the films noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, was shot in colour.

`Raging Bull'- a biography of the boxer Jake La Motta who for a time held the world middleweight championship- is one of the few exceptions. The use of black-and-white seems to have been inspired by the fact that the film depicts real-life events that occurred in the forties and fifties. Scorsese has tried to capture the look of both the films and the newsreels of that period. This is remarkably effective for the boxing scenes, which have a raw, brutal power and graphically depict the aggressive nature of the sport. The other remarkable thing about the film is the performance of Robert de Niro, for which he won a well-deserved Best Actor Academy Award. De Niro actually learned to box for the film, and did all the boxing scenes himself without using a stunt double, but his portrayal of La Motta's private life is equally effective.

Some boxers- Henry Cooper comes to mind- are hard-hitting inside the ring but gentlemanly and restrained outside. La Motta, as portrayed in this film, did not fall into this category. De Niro portrays him as a man with a very short fuse, seething with anger and violence. Unlike his great rival Sugar Ray Robinson, an elegant practitioner of the art of boxing, La Motta tries to overpower his rivals with brute force rather than relying on skill. His aggression is not something confined to the ring, but rather an inherent part of his personality, and comes out in his dealings with others. He treats his beautiful wife Vicki particularly badly, frequently (and irrationally) suspecting her of infidelity and subjecting her to both verbal and physical abuse. Besides De Niro's dominating performance, there are also very good contributions from Cathy Moriarty as Vicki and from Joe Pesci as La Motta's loyal brother Joey, another frequent target of abuse despite his loyalty.

For me, this is a very good film, yet one that falls just short of the classic status that some have claimed for it. At times it is enthralling to watch, but at others, particularly in the first half, it seems to lack structure, as La Motta takes on a series of opponents without the significance of these fights ever becoming clear. More could have been made of the gambling-inspired corruption that infested the sport at this period and which may well have contributed to La Motta's sense of frustration- at one time it is made clear to him that his getting a chance to fight for the world title depends upon his taking a dive in a non-title fight. The main weakness, however, is a sense of emptiness at its centre, resulting from the lack of a character who can engage our sympathies. As I said, it is De Niro's performance that dominates the film, but for all his fine acting, even he cannot make us sympathise with a drunken, self-pitying, paranoid, violent wife-beater. As a character study of an unpleasant character it is excellent, but it can go no further than that. I cannot agree that this is the greatest film of the eighties; indeed, for me it was not even the greatest sporting film of the eighties. (I preferred both `Chariots of Fire' and `Eight Men Out'). It is an easy film to admire, but a difficult one to love. 7/10.

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!