http://www.playboy.com/mar81/movies.html (PC Press Internet CD, 03/1996)
Indubitably a top contender among current movies, Martin Scorsese's
Raging Bull (UA) may score highly as a technical knockout.
Scorsese stages several of the most bloody and gut-busting boxing sequences ever
committed to film in an episodic, unsentimental adaptation by Paul Schrader and
Mardik Martin of rowdy middleweight champion Jake La Motta's autobiography,
roughly spanning the years 1941-1960. Add to that an overwhelming performance by
Robert De Niro, framed by Michael Chapman's classic and classy black-and-white
cinematography, plus a superb sound track subliminally providing nonstop
nostalgia. Altogether, the film gets off to such a strong head start, the flaws
don't show for an hour or so. Then they multiply. There's overkill in Scorses's
subjective slow-motion shots that try to pound poetry into pugilism, but his
worst miscalculation was to invest so much supercharged emotion in a character
scarcely more likable than Attila the Hun. A simple-minded bully, La Motta
outside the ring is even meaner than he is with the gloves on. He's a boor and a
wife beater who evolves, blow by blow, into a gross insensitive loudmouth
exploiting his faded glory by performing in strip clubs or ludicrous one-man
shows. Still, De Niro's remarkable physical transformation, from lithe young
brute to barroom blob, is an unquestionable tour de force. Scorsese coaxes
showstopper stints from his entire cast, especially from newcomer Cathy Moriarty
as Vicki, the sullen blonde beauty who became La Motta's second wife and
favorite punching bag. The only other character to arouse my sympathy was Joe
Pesci as the champ's put-upon brother Joey, who is also alienated by La Motta's
insanely jealous suspicion that somebody must be screwing his wife. There has
not been such a raw portrait of the Italian-American macho man since "The
Godfather." Hardly in the same league, "Raging Bull" is flashy but finally empty
and anticlimactic -- more of Scorsese's gritty mean-streets realism with too
little humanism to make us care.
The first reel or so of Nine To Five (Fox) made me steel myself for an interim report on women's rights, an Emancipation Proclamation for the working girl. The movie has a message of sorts, but forget preachments and let's hear it for Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. Although they may have to share the top spot among film feminists with Goldie Hawn (as in "Private Benjamin"), Jane, Lily and Dolly are aces as a trio of office buddies, or sisters-in-arms, who all become rebel queens for a day once "Nine to Five" gets up some steam. Details of the plot were covered sufficiently in the December Playboy (on location, with reporter Larry Grobel). The screenplay by Colin Higgins (of "Harold and Maude" and "Foul Play") and Patricia Resnick -- with Higgins directing in a hit-or-miss manner -- isn't quite as consistent as the collective star power unleashed to belt it across. With those three misses, however, the hits come easy. Jane is a partner in the production and a joy forever. More than atoning for her ill-conceived "Moment by Moment" with Travolta, Tomlin is hilarious, particularly when she camps through a Snow White fantasy about poisoning her boss, with lots of bluebirds and furry forest creatures dancing attendance on her. Dolly is delightful, and while I'm not sure that what she does is acting, she exudes the kind of naturally sunny spontaneity that other actresses work very hard to imitate. There's no male love interest as such, just Dabney Coleman as a boss you love to hate -- "a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" whom the girls kidnap and hold hostage. Never scolding or self-righteous re male-chauvinist pigs, "Nine to Five" shrewdly makes its points stronger by turning the revenge of the working girl into the liveliest office party of the year.
