“Taxi Driver” Movie Review

 

“Taxi Driver”

 

Movie Review

 

The 1976 American neo-noir psychological drama thriller movie Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, and Albert Brooks, was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrade. The movie, starring Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, a soldier working as a taxi driver in a morally bankrupt and decaying New York City after the Vietnam War, depicts Travis Bickle's worsening mental state as he works nights in the city.

 

Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran and 26-year-old U.S. Marine with an honorable discharge, lives alone in New York City and struggles with PTSD. To deal with his persistent insomnia and loneliness, Travis accepts a job as a night-shift cab driver. He regularly frequents the 42nd Street pornographic cinemas and keeps a notebook in which he makes an effort to incorporate aphorisms, such as "you're only as healthy as you feel." He grows repulsed by the crime and blight he sees in Manhattan and has dreams about "getting the slime off the streets."

 

Betsy, a volunteer on Charles Palantine's presidential campaign, becomes Travis's obsession. She is approached by Travis as she enters the campaign office and accepts his invitation to go out for coffee. In order to go on another date with Travis, Betsy admits that she has a unique connection to him. Travis drags Betsy to a pornographic theater on their date, which disgusts her and makes her walk out. He makes fruitless efforts to make amends with her. He storms into her office at the campaign, furious, and scolds her before being asked to leave.

 

Travis confides in a fellow cab driver known only as Wizard about his violent inclinations after having an existential crisis and witnessing numerous prostitution-related incidents throughout the city. Wizard, though, brushes them off and reassures him that everything will be OK. Travis starts a program of rigorous physical training in an effort to find a way to vent his wrath. Travis purchases four pistols from Easy Andy, a black market gun dealer, after a fellow taxi driver advises him. Travis trains drawing his weapons at home and modifies one so he can swiftly conceal it in his sleeve and use it. In order to observe the security during Palantine's rallies, he too starts going. Travis murders a man who was trying to rob a convenience store owned by a buddy one night by shooting and killing the intruder.

 

Travis frequently runs into Iris, a child prostitute, while exploring the city. He approaches her and attempts to talk her out of using herself as a prostitute. After that, Travis gets a mohawk and prepares to kill Palantine at a protest he attends in public. Secret Service officers, who spot him unzipping his jacket and placing his hand inside, chase him away. Travis shoots Iris' pimp, Sport, at the brothel she works at that night. He enters the structure and starts shooting at Sport and a mafioso who is one of Iris's customers. Despite being shot multiple times, Travis still manages to murder the two men. After engaging in a fight with the bouncer, he manages to stab him in the hand with the dagger he had hidden in his shoe before killing him with a shot to the head. Travis tries to shoot himself but runs out of ammunition. He slumps on a couch next to an emotional Iris, bloodied and hurt. Travis, in a fit of delirium, pretends to shoot himself in the head with his finger as the police arrive on the scene.

 

As a result of his wounds, Travis enters a coma. He wins praise from the media for acting as a brave vigilante, escapes punishment for the killings, and thanks in a letter from Iris's father. After getting better, Travis grows out his hair and goes back to work, where he runs into Betsy. They get along well, with Betsy mentioning that she read about his experience in the media. Travis drives off after dropping her off at home and refusing to accept any payment. He sees something in his rearview mirror and gets upset all of a sudden.

 

Audiences should have the impression of being in a dream while watching the movie, according to director Scorsese. Filming began in the summer of 1975 in New York City with director of photography Michael Chapman, and it was finished the same year. Only hours before passing away, Bernard Herrmann completed his final soundtrack for the movie, which is dedicated to him.

 

Despite controversy over its graphic violence at the climactic finale and Foster's casting as a child prostitute at the age of 12, it was a critical and economic triumph. In addition to four nominations for the 49th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for De Niro, and Best Supporting Actress for Foster, the movie won multiple awards, including the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.

 

Despite considerable controversy over its part in John Hinckley Jr.'s plot to kill then-President Ronald Reagan, Taxi Driver has remained a hit and is regarded as one of the most influential and culturally significant films of all time. Together with The Godfather Part 11, it was chosen as the 31st best movie of all time in Sight & Sound's annual critics poll from 2012, while it was ranked as the fifth finest movie of all time in the directors' poll. The US Library of Congress designated the movie for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1994 after determining that it was "culturally, historically, or aesthetically" significant.

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