it was really boring. why is it so acclaimed?
It’s not that great. Outside of “Goodfellas” and “Shutter Island,” I don’t think much of Scorsese.
It’s famous for having a slow-mo shot of a dude getting his face pounded, the way Vertigo is famous for popularizing the dolly zoom. Both films are really, really boring, though.
It is the real life story of Jake LaMotta. Based on his book. I found the tragedy of his personal life a lot more interesting than his boxing career. The same violence & rage that made him a great boxer nearly destroyed him outside the ring.
It is very stylized. It’s not your typical blood and guts fight pic. There’s no heroes or romance like you see in Rocky.
I don’t find it boring.
Let me just ask the OP something…
You fuck my wife?
I agree. Boring and way overrated. Deniro was great as usual, but didn’t have much to work with. BTW, I thought Vertigo was a great movie.
It depends on whether you think it’s a boxing movie or a character drama. As a boxing movie, it’s routine; as a character drama, it’s fascinating. LaMotta was a complex character, filled with rage and making bad decisions. Prior to this, films about boxers tended to the Golden Boy model – poor boy making good, with a major conflict occurring because he’s asked to throw a fight (Movie Movie and Mad Magazine parodied that trope). Occasionally there was a different twist – The Harder They Fall was a focusing on the corruption around the boxer, but the boxer in it was not the main character.
Lamotta was not portrayed as a golden boy – he was angry, impulsive, unable to relate to others, and a nasty man overall. This was far different from any boxing movie previously. Scorsese shows how he became humbled and leaves somewhat ambiguous the question of whether he has been humbled enough to change.
There are also great performances from DeNiro, Cathy Moriarty (her first film role, amazingly) and Joe Pesci. And Scorsese’s staging of the fight scenes set the standard for them for years.