IMDb #113 Review: Raging Bull (1980)

Source: Wikipedia

A boxer's anger issues make and break his life. He blasts through the competition in the ring, but his outside life becomes so awful he wouldn't want to be anyplace else. A bull in a china shop, if broken crockery could sue for damages and file for divorce and hire thugs to pound his face to a pulp.

In the 1940s, while most young men are fighting in the world war, Jake LaMotta fights a war against the world -- and its pesky age-of-consent laws. He picks up a hot blonde teen at the public pool, treats her to a couple shitty dates, and despite his imperiousness and thick head manages to make it work. And withholds coitus to keep energy for fights. Nice going, champ.

Somehow he gets it into his thick head that his wife's cheating. He sure treats her like it. Then flips out when it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

More importantly, he dominates the ring. He conks out opponents, despite small hands. His fast-talking brother manages his madness, though the beast on a short leash drags him places he would never go alone. The brothers share one big thing -- mistreatment of their wives. Them's the forties.

As much as the protagonist punishes everyone else, he punishes himself. Hard diet, hours in the sauna, slimming down to meet the bare maximum for middleweight. For one shot at the title. And if he wins? Sit around, watch TV, get fat. Until the collected rage breaks out and reduces his social life to Bikini Atoll.

Where am I going with this? Good question. Where is this going?

His fame goes nova, and he subsides into the white-dwarf shame of post-celebrity life. He opens a shitty nightclub. Becomes a cringeworthy stand-up comedian. And a jailbird, since it turns out acting on ephebophilia is still illegal.

Robert de Niro acts phenomenally, even when playing a character who's playing a bad actor. The best parts weren't even acting -- the physique, or subsequent lack thereof.

Then it just ends.

What's the point? I don't know. It'a a true story. The guy's still alive. You ask him. I'll...wait here.

129 minutes.