Summary - Really Great 4.5

Brutally brilliant, Raging Bull grew legendary after fading from the silver screen. It remains one of the greatest movies ever made, flawed only by Cathy Moriarty’s disappointing portrayal of Vickie La Motta. Everything else – notably Scorsese’s up-close and personal filmmaking, coupled with the physicality and self-absorption of De Niro’s acting – make this a benchmark movie for fans of character studies, Italian-Americana, boxing, and the corrupting influence of fame and fortune.

A period piece, the movie serves as time capsule from a society we recognize but no longer inhabit. Wife beating – accepted then as relatively normal marital relations – now shocks like drunken driving or pregnant smoking. Not that it doesn’t still happen, just that it’s no longer winked at. (Ask Chris Brown.)

Acting - Great 4.0

A De Niro masterpiece, he famously plays Jake La Motta as the lean young boxing champion and also as the gone-to-seed older man 60 pounds heavier.¹ Less charismatic and showy than his other legendary performances, he’s nonetheless a force-of-nature as the young brutalizer and spectacularly self-absorbed as the campy older celebrity.

Joe Pesci, in his first major movie role, matches up well to De Niro, though it’s hard not to view the two of them (Pesci especially) through the prism of their Goodfellas characters.

Also notable in his first major movie role is Pesci’s buddy Frank Vincent, who would go on to play a rogues’ gallery of wiseguys, notably Billy Batts (the made-man that Pesci kills in Goodfellas) and Tony’s enemy Phil Leotardo from The Sopranos. With a strikingly handsome profile, he personifies Mafia smoothie.

Cathy Moriarty, in her debut movie role, underwhelms as the neighborhood glamour girl who La Motta marries, harries and drives away. Sure she’s got platinum blond locks and a pretty face, but she’s not nearly as beautiful – or charismatic – as the real Vicki La Motta, as one glance at the WikChip to the right proves. Maybe I’m crazy for Vicki too, though blonds aren’t my type so I doubt it. Or maybe Scorsese wanted his lead actress to play with a pall. In any case, Moriarty’s downbeat performance mars the overall perfection of the movie.

And how about Nicholas Colasanto as mafia boss Tommy Como? Colasanto later achieved enduring fame as Coach, the lovable lunkhead behind the bar during the first three seasons of Cheers.
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¹ De Niro gorged himself for three months in the finest Parisian restaurants to gain the weight. Nice work if you can get it.

Film - Perfect 5.0

Scorsese has directed many benchmark movies, with Raging Bull amongst the first rank. Spare and unsparing, shot in timeless black & white, the movie elegantly introduces the caricature that La Motta became once he left the ring, and then shows how he deservedly came to such a sorry state. This style and structure introduces enough complexity to make the film engrossing, while leaving plenty of room to paint the picture of a man brought low by the demons that made him a celebrity.

The boxing scenes – the best ever filmed – span only about ten minutes yet required six weeks to film.¹ Scorsese achieved stunning intimacy by having his cinematographer dance in the ring like a third fighter,² then used the sounds of squashing melons and tomatoes to aurally deliver landed punches.
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¹ According to iMDB’s Trivia Page.

² According to Wikipedia

Edge - Sordid 2.9

La Motta had one of the best chins in the history of boxing, perhaps stronger than the stomachs of many viewers of this movie. It’s not just the violence in the ring (brutal though that is), but the brutalization that La Motta inflicts on his wives that is hard to stomach.

"IMDB says":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081398/trivia 'fuck' is used 114 times in the movie.

Reality - Glib 1.3

One known deviation from reality: Jake’s primary confidant and foil was his best friend Peter Savage, not his brother Joey as depicted in the movie.

3 Comments

• Wick Oct 10, 2010 11:23AM

  Regarding MetalJunky5000’s Review
  Interesting take, MJ, especially your observation about Scorsese’s rescue from drug dependency as a result of making Raging Bull.

  Given that Scorsese’s demons were enabled by the fact that he was a show biz success, perhaps he was using Jake La Motta’s celebrity indulgences as a partial metaphor for his own life.

• Wick Mar 29, 2009 12:45AM

  Regarding Wick’s Review
  Yep, that’s right. I couldn’t see fit to give the legendary Raging Bull five full beams. Couldn’t get over my disappointment with Cathy Moriarty, so had to apply a half beam haircut.

  Perfect Film though, and Perfect Lead Acting by De Niro, no fucking doubt.

  But Perfect Movie? Nope.

• Wick Feb 24, 2008 8:25AM

  Nice work AMC, ringing in the first review of Raging Bull. Perfect indeed.

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