Raging Bull (1980)

After a long time it gives an immense pleasure to do a review of Martin Scorsese's movie again. Well today being friday I picked one of his best movie "Raging Bull".

Raging Bull is a cinematic masterpiece which pulls no punches. Based on a true story, Robert De Niro stars as Jake La Motta, a middle-weight boxer from the late-1940s and early-1950s, who basically destroys himself and those around him because of an uncontrollable temper and poor decision-making. Instead of going down as one of the greatest boxers of all time, La Motta ruined his career because he was unable to see the bigger picture. He threw bouts, he got involved with low-life underworld crime figures, he beat his wife , he abused all those closest to him, and he had relationships with young girls who were still considered minors. Even his strongest tie, his younger brother, gets cut during the course of his untimely self-destruction.


The film is shot brilliantly, what Scorsese disliked about the previous boxing films he had seen was the way the fights were shown from ringside, adopting a spectator's view, which protected the audience from the brutality inside the ring. For Raging Bull, Scorsese was determined to get as close as possible to the raw violence of the fights. He filmed inside the ring and make the audience feel every punch. His plan was to shoot the fight scenes as if the viewers were the fighter, and their impressions were the fighter's, and never to insulate the audience from the violence in the ring. The viewers would think, feel, see and hear everything the boxers would.


I keep mentioning in all Martin Scorsese movie reviews that he was again and again robbed of the Oscar awards for eg. for Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and later for Aviator, Gangs of New York. This film was also criminally robbed of 1980's Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards, by "Ordinary People", another one of those dysfunctional family drama's.

For all those who have not seen, see it. The legendary Mohammed Ali may be boxing's biggest name, but his recent biopic, 'Ali,' falls way short of the high standards set by Raging Bull.

Johnny Gaddaar [2007]- Review

Recently saw this movie when one of my friend told me that it is an adaptation of James Hadley Chase's novel. I have read most of the JHC books and will vouch for it that if you read all of his books and act on them you'll one day end up a big fraud. There are so many innovative ways which JHC come up with to con people. Now being an ardent fan of JHC, I made it a point to see this movie but had some apprehensions at first because some years ago even Ketan Mehta tried to adapt a JHC novel, 'The Sucker Punch' into AAR YA PAAR, even some of the dialouges were lifted from the book but i guess he failed in the script. He went too far from what was there in the novel.

Comming back to Johnny Gaddaar I found the story is not lifted from any of JHC's novels, it does follow a somewhat similar plot though. I feel it is Sriram Raghavan's (Of 'Ek Haseena Thi' fame) tribute to many personalities, Vijay Anand, R K Narayan (Rimi Sen is reading 'Guide' in the film), Rama Gopal Verma (Sriram was RGV's assistant), Hitchcock etc. In the opening credits he mentions some of the names like JHC and Vijay Anand.



The movie features the grandson of the legendary singer Mukesh, Neil Nitin Mukesh and what a debut!!!!! I was amazed by the way he has carried out his role. Flawless. Also another brilliant performance by Vinay Pathak after Bheja Fry.



The movie is about a gang whose members are involved in some kind of shady deals. One such deal promises the gang a lot of money, but one member of the gang is lured by the 'Whiff of Money' (Another JHC novel which Neil Mukesh is reading in the train) and began to hatch his own secret plans, leading to unforseen situations for the group. The things go wrong when his plans goes astray. The movie is a relentlessly rigorous take on the wages of crime and what evil men do to their conscience for the sake of money.

Johnny Gaddaar is not a compelling thriller but its witty direction and sincere performances make it a fine thriller, among the best in recent years. It is a much needed respite from song and dance type of movies which are being churned out these days. The soundtrack is groovy, Vishal-Shekhar has done justice to some old song references by mixing them well. Even the songs are a tribute to the olden era (Read Navketan Productions) of thrillers. Songs like Johnny Breakbeat Mera Naam aka 'Johnny Mera Naam', 'Bhule Bisre Geet', 'Revenge of the 70's', are well done.

It is sad that the movie didn't got its due share commercially. But after the movie was well received by the critics, it mustered some figures commercially. I feel it was the most underrated movies of 2007.