Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" is a violently epic portrayal of urban life and all its disillusionments. Starring Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle, a slightly insane cabbie, the movie follows his adventures through New York City, a place Travis describes as a cesspool breeding human filth. It is Travis' fondest desire to take a hose to all of New York and leave it spotless and empty, disposing of the human refuse and mundane variety.
Travis' job as a taxi driver exposes him, and the audience, to the worst dregs of humanity as he transports them around late at night. These sometimes laughable, sometimes disgusting characters push Travis to the very edge of sanity in his desperation to find something worthwhile amid all the trash. Away from his busy porn watching schedule, Travis encounters a fantastic cast including Cybil Sheppard as a brief love interest, Jodie Foster as a 14 year old prostitute and Harvey Keitel as her pimp.
DeNiro turns in an amazing performance that totally sells the audience on his character's lunacy. What really comes through in DeNiro's acting however, is the overwhelming sense of frustration his character feels. Every time he looks at one of his late-night passengers engaged in sex acts or drives through a bad section of town, his eyes burn with disgust and fury.
Indeed, the opening speech is about how much Travis wishes he didn't have to live in New York or even come into contact with people. And through the course of the movie, this frustration grows.
At first he laughs at other cabbies who carry guns, but then Travis himself purchases half a dozen to carry at all times.
Perhaps the most telling storyline in the movie is Travis' growing fascination with a political figure who claims he can make a difference. Initial interest becomes obsession, and Travis changes from supporter to stalker, going so far as to become an unwanted bodyguard at one of the candidate's rallies.
The setting of the movie is an elegant yet unrelentingly lower-class urban landscape. The backgrounds are dingy, and the lighting is often poor. Small signs bearing platitudes about success and life abound. Travis' apartment is little more than a closet, and his cab, while clean enough, is obviously well past its prime. Basically, "Taxi Driver" is not a cheerful movie and goes out of its way to show it.
The writing is great, and the audience really feels the descent into paranoia and madness that the main character experiences. The dialogue also goes a long way towards making the movie an uncomfortable experience for the audience. A large portion of it is either internal monologue or Travis talking to himself. And it's never a pleasant thing to watch somebody talk to themselves in the mirror.
While "Taxi Driver" is definitely not light fare, it is probably Scorsese's most socially significant work thanks to its depictions of urban decay and the desperation of lower-class city life. "Taxi Driver" forces the audience to think about how they would react to the kind of life Travis has and whether what he does is really that far from what their own reactions would be. For so many reasons, "Taxi Driver" is a must see movie. If nothing else, it's worth it just to see DeNiro with a mohawk.
