Martin Scorsese directed this film immaculately, at the time of filming he thought that this might be his last film, and you certainly feel it in his work here. Pesci and De Niro particularly have great chemistry together, really feeling like brothers. The supporting cast also do well, with Cathy Moriarty playing Jake’s eventual wife and Joe Pesci playing Jake’s brother. Yet De Niro manages to make him an human angle that works and makes him feels like a complex person, and still rather compelling to watch. Again, LaMotta really doesn’t have any redeeming qualities at all, with his mistrust, rage, outbursts, and self loathing alienating everyone around him. He’s transformative both as the fit Jake LaMotta earlier in his career, as well as the older and retired Jake LaMotta with more weight. Robert De Niro gives one of the greatest performances of his career as Jake LaMotta. It’s definitely not an easy movie to watch, only check it out if you’re ready for it really. It really doesn’t hold back in showing the brutal truth. Saying that Jake LaMotta isn’t a good person would be quite an understatement, it doesn’t try to give you a reason to sympathise with him.

It’s about real life boxer Jake LaMotta and his self destructive life. Raging Bull may be about a boxer but the boxing itself isn’t the focus of the movie. Raging Bull nearly 40 years later remains an absolutely masterful, if hard to watch, film.

I had been meaning to give Raging Bull a rewatch for some time as it’s been years since I’ve seen it for the first time, and with my recent viewing of many of Scorsese’s films, there was no better time. 3 years after a movie known as one of his weakest with New York, New York, Martin Scorsese made one of the best films of his career.

Nicholas colasanto raging bull