Tagline: Though I can fight, I'd much rather recite... That's entertainment
'Raging Bull' is not just a great film about boxing, it is a great film by any standards, and many critics regard it as one of the best movies of the 1980s.
The film tells the tale of Jake La Motta, a violent kid from the Bronx, who became world middleweight champion in the 1940s. But rather than simply focussing on the prize-fighter, it looks at the man himself and his private life, especially his attitude towards women.
As portrayed, brilliantly by Robert De Niro, La Motta is a man of limited imagination and low self-esteem, seething with emotions that he cannot articulate. Fuelled by sexual inadequacy, a lack of understanding, suspicion and jealousy, he expresses his angst onto his wife in the only way he knows how - violence.
For something to thrill and excite you, stir your blood lust and at the same time make you think, this film is not to be missed.