New York New York is a musical about a passionate jazz player and his struggles with love and career with a Hollywood love letter thrown in as well. Now which film does this remind everyone of? Just like La La Land, New York New York is a homage to the golden age of musicals but packs Scorsese's intensity. Robert DeNiro is in his 70's prime and knocks it out of the park with his performance, easily the best feature of the film. Liza Minelli does a decent job but she's there for her singing and does great in that. However this is easily the most flawed film I have seen from Scorsese, it stands at an enormous run-time of nearly three hours, there's more than a few scenes which could be trimmed down, especially during the first hour and a half, I think a lot can be blamed on Scorsese unable to handle a big budget film back then, the sets were expensive so were the cars and the props but he was spending way too much time in pointless scenes. However the film really picks up and the last one hour is where this movie truly shines. DeNiro was just brilliant in his role of an insecure but ambitious saxophonist. A film despite it's flaws should give you a handful of scenes which will stay with you once the film is over, one scene in particular will always stay with me, DeNiro is angry and frustrated with his wife Minnelli but keeps it bottled in and it comes out during a magnificent scene with him and his saxophone playing an energetic and a furious melody while his eyes rain down fireballs on her, no dialogue just music and body language.
Review of New York, New York
