Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) is a Middleweight Champion boxer. This film follows his life using a fictional reality styling.

No plot to talk of other than how a man in his position plays the game, throwing a fight, beating his wife, eating steak, sitting by the pool side, fighting his brother, then retiring from the ring, getting fat and telling crap jokes... that's your life mate...

It all looks pretty much doomed from the start and doomsters will not be disappointed by this movie.

"A triumph of putting on weight for the part without the use of a fat suit. De Niro, you wobble bottom, and yet, you pert sexy bottom all in the same movie! A triumph of dieting and eating pies."

"Keep the St Johns Wort on hand as this movie doesn't have many laughs."

"Although our hero does slap his first wife about a bit, one can see his point. She didn't bring that steak over very quickly when asked now did she?"

"Is my TV on the blink or is the ruddy sound in the fights louder than the sound of everyday life? Pluck you Scorsese. This plays well in the cinema no doubt, but on a home entertainment system, when you are trying to keep the sucking sound down to stop the neighbors in the flat next door from complaining, but still wanting to hear what the blucking characters are saying to each other, I had to use my remote volume control more than 35 times! 10 out of 10 for creativity, but -30 out of 10 for in home sound entertainment."

"How ya-doooen?"

Raging Bull is a classic movie for all of its realism. It offers its audience an insight into a slice of life which one would normally think must be quite wonderful, but, in fact, is sucking like an industrial grade vacuum cleaner during an electrical current surge.

La Motta's life works in the ring (queue loud sound) but outside he is a fragile beast (lower sound). Unhappily married, paranoid, a man who had a great talent, and, yet, still it all fails to work out for him. The ending, where he is working as a comedian, still cashing in on his past celebrity, is truly depressing. No, dear viewers, this is not a feel good movie. This is a feel terrible and thank the Lord I've got a life better than this chump movie.

Filmed in Black and White, the reality of the piece is frightening. No story as such, just a life told with great integrity and brilliance.

La Motta ends his boxing career without a wife, without his brother, fat, unfunny, owner of a nightclub which he acts as host. He spends time in jail for abuse of a 14 year old girl.

Raw steak that the wife refuses to bring over.

In the classic kids TV 'tomato ketchup on-face' position.

The slow motion, then slightly faster than normal motion of the punchy bits are nicely stylized. However it is still obvious that our well paid actors are not punching each other, but their blows are stopping an inch or two short.

But even so, some of the effects are shocking, mainly the blood in the final fight, and the beaten and bloodied face of La Motta calling out to his adversary that you 'didn't get me down'.

I beat my brother and I'm sorry, right? I beat my wife but she didn't bring me my steak when I asked for it nicely 2 times! I beat my second wife cos she was sleeping around! Why is everyone picking on me? (Fancy a punch in the face, it feels sooo good!)

There is nothing as relaxing as a nice bubble bath, I think we can all agree on that one. This movie is totally lacking in any such pampering. It is such a shame that this opportunity for bubbly bliss was let go. A couple of minutes of humor involving bubbles, or possibly even balloons, would have made all of the difference.

Nothing which might, in reality, flip out loose fitting dentures here. A tongue sandwich or two. Watch out for the long good-bye bit of pash between La Motta's wife and a colleague that gets La Motta into a tizzy.

• Professor of boxing psychology
• Neighbor who wants to fight you
• Small child who has just told you they want to take up Boxing as a sport
• Ducks with a limp
• Movie student studying Martin Scorsese's movie collaboration with 'son' Robert De Niro.

If someone ever tells you to punch them as hard as you can in their face, run for the hills and take the family with you.

A disappointing lack of tactics throughout. It's a bit of a slug fest. A pity.

A tough, hard, no spoonful of sugar anywhere (and if there were one it would have been stuck up your ass to begin with) movie. This movie is truly harsh. This is life in Black and White, a tragedy of a life, despair is all that there is left. It's almost as if you are waiting for a punch line, isn't it? There isn't one. This is as bleak as bleak can be. If we ever start reviewing Swedish movies it would only get as depressing as this, no worse.

But, still, this is a marvelously depressing movie. Acted with aplomb and peppered with some reasonable boxing ballet. Even these fights mirror the character's decline (at the start La Motta stops punching the second the bell goes, at the end he keeps throwing the punch...) In many all time top 100's. For us this movie is too bleak to enjoy but we can appreciate how great it is.