Taxi Driver (1976)

**Social outcast with a mohawk goes nutzoid**

Porn obsessed loner, Travis Bickle, is a cabbie in New York. The story tells of his gradual descent into madness brought on by his inability to relate to those around him and a feeling of a lack of worth. Travis is essentially invisible - of no importance. Walton's self imposed isolation preferable to getting along with the scum around him. One day he decides to change all of that and become _a somebody_ by murdering a politician.

This _nobody_ with the superiority complex has gone off the rails, for certain and it can only lead to bloodshed. A lot of it will be his own.

Taxi Driver has had many things said about it, and I don't wish to add to all that but it is the yardstick I measure all other films by, it is by far my favourite of all the films I have ever watched.

It's brutal honesty and use of themes such as paranoia, mental health issues, and society degradation make it a film that has been imitated, and referenced since its opening in cinemas back in 1976.

Robert De Niro puts in a tour-de-force performance as Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran with symptoms of PTSD and paranoia, who becomes a New York City taxi driver because of his inability to sleep. Travis is one who is at odds with society, fed up with pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and all the other scum of the earth, he slowly works himself in his sleep deprived and drugged state to become a one man army ready to kill anyone he believes to be part of the problem.

His interactions with other cabbies, Betsy (Shepherd) a Presidential Candidate campaign worker, Iris a teenage prostitute (Foster), and her Pimp “Sport” (Keitel) fuels his destructive mission to rid New York City of its problems. His attempt at normalcy with Betsy, by taking her on date to a movie that disagrees with her sensibilities ends in disaster, mostly due to Travis’ supposed naivety about what is considered appropriate and tasteful entertainment.

While plying his nightly trade as a NYC cabbie, he has some unusual encounters, including a fare from a fairly psychotically jealous man showing Travis the place where the man’s wife is cheating on him, and then a short encounter with Iris who gets in his cab, and then forced out by Sport, who throws Travis a dirty crumpled up twenty dollar note for the trouble, Travis then makes it his mission to rescue Iris from her situation while also making a menace of himself to the visiting Presidential candidate.

This film is still relevant in these times, as social media, and other such technological & society advancements have brought about a new degradation of values, with many wanting their fifteen minutes of fame by any means necessary, which now brings with it many who sell their souls to attain notoriety.

I love De Niro's performance as Travis, its one that has many facets to it, in it is a man who is angry, naive, sleep deprived, lonely, a sociopath, and a killer.

A scene in the Presidential campaign office where he is rebuffed by Betsy due to the terrible date experience, and ushered, and menaced by the opportunistic & snotty campaign co-worker Tom (Brooks), shows the range of De Niro's performance as he goes from apologetic, and sheepish to angry, and ready to fight. De Niro was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this role.

The presentation on blu-ray is a solid one, PQ is nice, skin tones not waxy, and the AQ allowing the score, and surrounding noise subtleties to really shine through, it's very well handled for a source filmed in the mid 70's

Robert De Niro is outstanding in this dark and gritty depiction of former marine "Travis Bickle". He spends his time, alone, driving his cab at night then watching seedy movies during the day. This relentless cycle is broken when he takes a shine to "Betsy" (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign worker for a would be US Presidential candidate. There is a glimmer of hope for him, as she agrees to go out with him for a movie - but when he takes her to his usual haunt for a Swedish film that perhaps wasn't quite Ingmar Bergman, he ends up back at square one. Simultaneously, he takes a more protective interest in the young "iris" (Jodie Foster) - a teenage hooker who is being used abused by her pimp, and to that end he acquires some firearms with which he is perfectly proficient, and so finally starts to see a purpose for his hitherto rather rudderness existence. Director Martin Scorsese and veteran scorer Bernard Hermann have created a wonderfully convincing and evocative scenario emphasising the seediness of a night time New York in which De Niro is able to thrive as few other actors could. He exudes a sense of helplessness but also of decency; he has integrity almost in spite of the indifference of his city, his peers - and by the end, I was firmly in his corner. If you can see it up on a big screen, then do so - it lends a great deal to this wonderfully atmospheric and potent piece of cinema.

**_Hellish urban decay and one man’s step-by-step fall into Big City madness_**

In the mid-70s, an ex-marine insomniac in New York works the graveyard shift as a cab driver (De Niro) while trying to develop a relationship with a beautiful campaign volunteer for a presidential candidate (Cybill Shepherd and Leonard Harris). He experiences White Knight Syndrome as he seeks to rescue a 12½ years-old prostitute (Jodie Foster).

Written by Paul Schrader and directed by Scorsese, "Taxi Driver" (1976) is an interesting character study of a misfit and his descent into radicalness after the day-to-day grind of living amidst the grungy, unsanitary places of an infernal Gotham, especially the grindhouse district. The protagonist is a ‘contradiction,’ loathing the decadence he observes but frequenting porn theaters in his spare time. Then there’s the irony of a potential assassin perceived as a vigilante hero.

The notable cast also includes a young Harvey Keitel as the girl’s pimp and Peter Boyle as Travis’ mentor-like fellow cabbie. Albert Brooks is on hand as a protective colleague of the campaign volunteer. Scorsese shows up in a bit part as an unhinged cab passenger.

It’s a good companion-piece to similar Schrader flicks, like “Hardcore,” “Cat People,” “Auto Focus” and “Dog Eat Dog.”

The film runs 1 hour, 54 minutes, and was shot in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

GRADE: B+/A-