Throughout the entire movie, there was one question going through my head: “Why isn’t De Niro’s character lying dead on a field in Germany or Japan or something?”
Seriously, this is a character who is so utterly dependent on conflict that he can only end in self-destruction. He so badly needs to fight that when he’s turned the world’s last middleweight boxer into hamburger, he’ll literally make up reasons to fight with anyone in the vicinity, including his loved ones. And when they bail on him, he fights with a prison wall. The downward progression continues until the end, when he’s old, washed-up, completely alone… and boxing against thin air. Even in those few moments where he tries to express love or camaraderie for someone else, he can only do so through physical means (such as his famous “hit me as hard as you can” scene with Joe Pesci).
The movie was superbly acted and extraordinarily directed, though it fell into the common “biopic” trap of dragging out for a little too long. Additional kudos for the sound design, choreography and slo-mo that made the boxing matches painfully immersive.