One of Joe Pesci’s two scenes in Day of the Fight utilizes the audience’s familiarity with his oeuvre to make us feel the protagonist’s plight. 

Despite their rocky past, when this new movie’s main character (Michael Pitt) comes face-to-face with the senility of his once-brutal father — played by Pesci — he can’t help but yearn for his dad’s diabolical, but now-bygone force of personality to return. . .

. . . A personality that sounds awfully similar to Pesci’s signature onscreen persona. . .

. . . The sort of performance you might find yourself yearning to see in Day of the Fight, especially because he so rarely works nowadays.

But, like the lead gent, we’re deprived of his dormant charisma, forcibly hidden behind his years.

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You know what we call Pesci’s jittery hand-gesture in Day of the Fight?

Acting.