Robert DeNiro gives a tour de force of acting excellence in this movie. One of the best acting performances of all time. This is a period of DeNiro's career when he was consistently churning out Oscar calibre performances one after another. He had this movie, Godfather Part II, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull all within the same basic time frame. When DeNiro and Scorsese were teaming up to make movies it was the best actor/director combinations in movie history. You had the best mind for movies in Scorsese working with the best on screen performer of his time.