Taxi
Driver
(1976)
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 Hour and 53 Minutes
Reviewer: Dale
Grade: A+After seeing "Taxi Driver", I believe I would just as soon visit Vietnam as visit New York City. At least, if this movie is even half true about what New York City is like.
Scorsese paints New York City as a vision of Hell on Earth in this film. And that would make Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle "The Boatman on the River Styx". He trawls the byways and streets of the city's diseased core, despising all that he sees and cataloguing its twisted inhabitants. To call Travis a lonely man would be an understatement. Travis seems to have been born without the ability to make a positive connection with any other member of the human race. He makes a date and takes her out to a porn film. Even I am not THAT clueless in matters of love. He meets a politician and immediately alienates the man. He cannot even pay attention to a conversation long enough to make friends. He is possibly the saddest, most tragic figure I have ever seen in a motion picture and Robert De Niro plays him to absolute perfection.
For me, this film was more like a horror movie than a drama. I cringed at every turn, watching Travis make all the wrong decisions, watching him make things worse for himself at every step of the way. As we watch, he goes from being fairly normal, to pathetic, to sad to scary. It is a disturbing yet fascinating performance and the reason that De Niro is a star. Yet the film is more than just the sum of De Niro's performance. Scorsese is a masterful director. I have only seen two of his films, but I know from what I have seen that he is deserving of every ounce of the kudos lauded toward him. He has an eye for making things interesting and for making you uneasy. A phone call, for example, is so unbearable that even the camera cannot bear to watch. The moment when Travis changes his look, for another example, is another stroke of genius. He hides Travis's new look for as long as he can and when the camera finally reveals it to us, it is all the more shocking.
The ending of the film is left to the interpretation of the viewer. A bold and remarkable choice. I always enjoy it when a movie lets my mind do the walking for the symbolism rather than presenting everything to me as though I am a small child. Whatever your interpretation of the ending, the film itself remains utterly chilling, thoroughly absorbing and more than a tad disturbing. It shows us just how easy it is to approach the edge of madness in our day to day journeys through life and to, sometimes, fall off. The fact that all of us can identify with at least a portion of Travis's life (although, hopefully, not all of it) makes it all the more immediate and frightening.