Taxi Driver

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Taxi Driver

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Taxi Driver

Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepherd

A sensationalized paranoia movie that is one long preparation for a massacre. It creates a tight, obsessive, suffocating world that excludes `normal' outlets for relief, rest, connection, gratificati...( read more  read more... )on. Robert DeNiro is superb as a lonely, impotent, insomniac ex-marine provoked to orgasmic carnage. It is definitely not suitable for the squeamish, the impressionable or the very young.

Id: 10901837

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Recent Reviews

Taxi Driver Recent Reviews
  • SirPant
    September 4, 2009
    SirPant
    The impact this film has had on cinema has been vast. A film true to its time, a social commentary on the public's lack of faith in politicians and the possible extent their paranoia could lead us. Plus you have three people on top of their game, Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese an...( read more)d Paul Schrader, all masters in their professions.
  • ohagankieran
    June 13, 2009
    ohagankieran
    No matter what wars are going on, what the neighbours are screaming about next store, how many kids Sally Struthers pleads on behalf of, at the end of the day the media (movies, TV, books, etc.) more often than not present us with a candy-coated view of the world where in the end...( read more) everything turns out right. John Boy gets his goodnights in, the Tanners of Full House get their hugs and the boy and the girl live happily ever after. Happy endings are a good way to feel good, but the sheer percentage of happy endings as opposed to the blur of reality is far too great. Perhaps that's why Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver is so frightening. It's got a happy ending of sorts, but the root of the happiness is deeply frightening.

    Made at a time when the world was skeptical and the powers that be were deemed untrustworthy, Taxi Driver resonates today as much as it did upon its initial release. The film focuses on a loner New York cabbie named Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro in one of his career-defining roles). Travis struggles to make any real friends, even failing to really get along with his coworkers over mid-shift coffee.

    Through Travis' eyes, Scorsese shows New York as an urban hell filled with drugs, pimps, weapons and politicians. This is established in the opening credits in a famous shot in which Travis' taxi emerges from a plume of steam that symbolizes the underworld of below.

    Travis is a Vietnam veteran who is unsure as to where to go with his life. All around him is human vermin and scum, surely not what he went to fight for. He is also alone in the world. He's shown with acquaintances, but there's never any sense of friendship until the end of the film, and even that "friendship" could be viewed as more familial than one of kinship.

    Looking at the world through a lens of trouble and disappointment, Travis is blind to love. When he lands a date with Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign organizer for a presidential hopeful, he takes her to a porno film their first time out. Amid the predictable fallout, Travis genuinely sees nothing wrong with his choice in date movies thinking that sex equaled love and vice versa. He has no concept on how to maintain a relationship. This, in part, allows Travis to become the violent anti-hero that he goes on to become later in the film. Because of his disconnect he isn't 'normal' and therefore Travis can go and commit murder and be admired for doing so. If he were your average guy in a suit, murder would not be so easy, even if it were to an abusive pimp who farms out young teenagers.

    Travis' motives are always pure. He simply wants a world filled with good. And just like he was willing to go to war earlier in his life on foreign soil, Travis is willing to fight on the streets of his homeland against enemies that aren't so easily identified. Travis is a soldier fighting the good fight.

    Taxi Driver is a grimy film that perfectly reflects its grimy subject matter. Paul Shrader's script combined with Scorsese's direction and topped off by De Niro's performance makes Travis Bickle one of film's most complex characters. When you talk about super heroes, he truly is one minus the tights and powers. This is a violent film that should be nothing less. Travis' world is an ugly place so what we see shouldn't be anything but.

    When Scorsese made Taxi Driver, he was still avoiding the glitz and glamour of a big-budget Hollywood production. Even if he was now in the spotlight, Taxi Driver maintains a gritty feel that was necessary for it to have any impact.

    The fact that this film is as applicable today as it was three decades ago is a sad testament that it is impossible for one man to make all the difference in the world. Although I don't think Scorsese meant for Taxi Driver to be a call to arms for would-be vigilantes around the world, it should be seen as an eye-opener - something that makes you more aware and educates about the sad reality of some people's lives.
  • mrpopcorn
    May 28, 2009
    mrpopcorn
    "On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody."

    A mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage pro...( read more)stitute in the process.

    REVIEW

    Travis Bickle remains one of the most iconic figures in cinema. His psychotic nature, profound intolerance and insomnia, are chillingly portrayed by a wired De Niro at the top of his game. While his role as the mercurial and masochistic Jake La Motta (Raging Bull) remains his finest hour, De Niro's performance is memorable. The reality of a New York with a hot underbelly is very much realised, and it gives substance to Travis' constant alienation from his immediate civilisation. The first person narrative structure allows us all to be immersed with Travis' unnerving state of mind. He is 'God's lonely man'.

    Scorsese's camera-work is especially riveting during the height of Travis' psychosis. When Travis has a gun in his hands, the camera becomes frighteningly close to the action, continuing this first person perspective that the film has from the start. Scorsese's distressing back seat cameo is a feat in itself. Paul Schrader's script smacks with attention to detail and palpable tension at every turn but it would never have been as effective without Herrmanns haunting score. It beautifully adapts to different moments in the film, evoking a whole range of emotions.
  • flixsterman
    April 29, 2009
    flixsterman
    Today I got my Bickle on. I don't get my Bickle on every day. In fact, it had been a few years since I last got my Bickle on, but today I was on vacation, with nothing better to do.

    Anyone who knows me knows that I can be a bit obsessive. I can brain-lock on a subject and o...( read more)rbit it for days and days, weeks even! Bickle is like that. He gets obsessed with crime and moral degradation and pretty soon that's all he can think about. I can relate to that. Lucky for me I live in an area where the worst crime I see is my fat-ass neighbor encouraging her poodle to crap in MY lawn instead of her own. But hey, as psychotic as I am, I can even obsess about that. It won't be long before I buy a .44 magnum, shave my hair into a mohawk and then it's bye-bye Mister Fi-Fi...
  • irisheyes686
    February 7, 2009
    irisheyes686
    I wasn't really a fan. I thought it was kinda all over the place...really weird.
  • Topsie11
    December 1, 2009
    Topsie11
    travis ( robert de niro) is a taxi driver at night.... long and so boring to watch at first but it make sense at all. its worth the wait.. robert de niro was soo cute. the fact that he was here in this movie was a beautiful thing. robert character here was weird really weird to t...( read more)he point that he became murderer. i just saw this last year. better late than never. this is a classic masterpiece you should watch..Taxi Driver is one of the best films ever made.. i watched it twice never get tired of it.. Taxi Driver is Martin Scorsese's masterpiece
  • rayld02
    November 27, 2009
    rayld02
    One of the greatest films in the history of cinema. Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" deviates the philosophical filmmaking from a number of stereotypes from its generation up till now. This is a story told in its most understated yet eye-opening horror of the human society. True g...( read more)reat perfomances embellished the scenes. These include Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle and Jodi Foster's young prostitute role which make me want to think, "Is she a real underage sex worker there?". The film is dark with ego, and red with violence, a true world situation which director Martin Scorsese wants to impart to its audience.
  • YoghurtTheWise
    November 26, 2009
    YoghurtTheWise
    "Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up."
  • kanokaan
    November 25, 2009
    kanokaan
    Great movie.Robert Deniro's acting is as well as all the movies he has done.but gunfight scene that is in the ending wasnt good enough.rest of it really great.
  • addienairzan
    November 25, 2009
    addienairzan
    Excellent movie.Love the scoring.Everything fits in its right place. An instant favorite of mine.
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