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Raging Bull Movie Review

Raging Bull is a 1980 biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro in the main role. It is one of the director’s finest efforts.

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“Yeah, he’s a nice kid, pretty kid,

don’t know whether to fuck him or fight him“

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A middleweight ascends through the ranks to achieve his first shot at a boxing title. But his personal life, laden with paranoia, jealousy and rage, negatively impacts him. This film wasn’t as well received when it first came out, but is now regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time. I personally wouldn’t go that far, but it is one of Scorsese’s best, though it doesn’t come close to the brilliance of ‘Taxi Driver’.

Clearly the standout of this picture is Robert De Niro himself, who has probably never been better than he was in the role of Jake LaMotta, a real-life boxer whose memoir was the basis for this screenplay. Perfectly cast in the role of this crude, but insecure man whose jealousy gets the better of him, De Niro was wholly believable and phenomenal throughout.

Through this character, the film explores the negative impact of toxic masculinity on everybody. I usually do not love that term, but her its usage is applicable as LaMotta is the definition of that aggressive, but very insecure man whose many psychological issues lead to his downfall. The movie truthfully depicts that this type of behavior impacts not just the people around these toxic men, but those men themselves.

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Cathy Moriarty was excellent as his poor wife. While Scorsese doesn’t emphasis her plight all that much, which was frustrating, Moriarty elevated her small role superbly with such a strong performance. Joe Pesci is also very memorable in another minor, but essential supporting role. This was his first big movie and he delivered.

Raging Bull is also phenomenally edited and paced. Thelma Schoonmaker actually got an Oscar for her editing work on this movie and it was well deserved as the film flows well and is very well cut. The black-and-white cinematography is another highlight. The movie looked splendid and quite timeless in its aesthetic. Not only was it polished and gorgeous, but also riveting in the boxing scenes that were shot in a viscerally brutal, realistic and intriguingly edited manner that no other boxing movie ever did.

Raging Bull is thrilling and unique in those boxing scenes, but it is at its best when it’s focusing on psychological family drama, functioning as a solid character study in its own way. Even more insight and sophistication was needed for this particular subject, but what we got was still a very well made, powerful and actually quite timeless drama that is difficult to pin down in any filmmaking era, which was its biggest strength. The drama is engaging throughout, well paced and superbly directed by Scorsese, making the case for the top three placement within his canon of movies.

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