A Robert De Niro film that scored higher than Goodfellas and The Godfather: Part II on Rotten Tomatoes is a must-watch for sci-fi fans. The dystopian tale scored an impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, a score system based on reviews by professional critics.
The 55 stellar reviews of Brazil compare with a 96% score for The Godfather: Part II, which is based on 129 reviews, and 94% for Goodfellas with 166 ratings. The 1985 dark comedy directed by Terry Gilliam is set in a bureaucratic future, where Robert De Niro plays Harry Tuttle, a wanted terrorist. He becomes the subject of an investigation by a bored government worker, Sam Lowry, who discovers that a mistaken identity led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man.
Sam, who attempts to escape the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream where he saves a beautiful damsel, then gets drawn into a nightmarish web of conspiracies and surveillance after meeting the woman in real life.
One critic wrote: “Gilliam crams the screen with such a proliferation of bizarre and comic details that you’ll want to revisit this particular nightmare again and again.”
Another added: “An uproarious satire of bureaucracy, technology, society, and humanity that proves to be one of the greatest movies of all time, sci-fi or otherwise.”
The film is currently available to rent on Apple TV or Sky Store, or stream through Plex.
Another De Niro epic, The Godfather: Part II, also received rave reviews on the platform.
One critic commented: “If I consider The Godfather Part II a formidable film, it’s because it’s the perfect complement to the first, even when the latter apparently didn’t need it.”
Meanwhile De Niro was hailed for his starring role in Goodfellas, which follows a poor Irish-Italian who grew up in 1950s New York City and rises through the ranks of an organised crime branch.
One critic wrote: “Funny and frightening, unpredictable and provocative, GoodFellas may be the most authentic Mafia picture ever made. The acting is superb, and so natural that no one — least of all De Niro — seems to be performing.”
Raging Bull, which follows De Niro as middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta through his rise and fall in professional boxing and his turbulent personal life, scored 92% on the review platform.