Movie Reviews

Taxi Driver

"Taxi Driver" is a 1976 thriller and character study by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert Deniro as Travis Bickle, Jodie Foster as Iris Steensma, and Cybill Shepherd as Betsy. This movie lasts 1h53 and takes place in New York City of the time.
Travis Bickle is a quiet nightly taxi driver in New York City. He's not very educated, doesn't have a partner or friends except for some of his colleagues. He's not overly invested in his job and doesn't seem to have hobbies. Overall, he's pretty much just apathetic. One day, he sees a woman, Betsy, and decides that she will be his girlfriend. He hits on her, pretty hard, asks her out. She agrees at the beginning but as time goes on, their differences in education and culture makes Betsy leave him. Travis doesn't seem particularly affected, and the story continues. He has several encounters in his cab that are odd but don't seem of so much importance: a client tells him he is going to kill his cheating wife; the senator that Betsy works for gets in the car and asks Travis what he thinks is wrong in this country, and he goes on a rant about lowlives (junkies, prostitutes, pimps, clubbers…); a young woman gets in his car but is taken out and yelled at by a guy. Later in the movie, Travis accidentally almost runs over her as well.
Quite suddenly, without many clues indicating the reason or motive, Travis buys several guns to a colleague's friend and builds contraptions to hide them on his body. He starts to exercise. He does odd things, such as going to the senator's rally and messing with the security men. As he was shopping in his usual corner store, a robber comes in, and he shoots him. He also decides to meet the woman he almost ran over, and he discovers that she is an underage prostitute. Her pimp is an absolute garbage man. Travis decides to save her, to pay to bring her back to her parents and school. She acts casual, but it is obvious in a very creepy scene where her pimp holds her tight that she is obviously not comfortable with this situation. Travis decides to act… and it gets very graphic. I won't spoil anything anymore though.
This movie has a very slow buildup. Travis really just seems like a normal guy, sure with not much to live for, but who seems ok with that. The fact that he goes psycho is almost a surprise, and that makes for an amazing character study. The fact that there is often a voiceover of Travis's diary adds to his loneliness, but also to his self-reflection. This movie has a rather classic filmography, but most scenes happen at night, and I think that they did an amazing job at filming night scenes, especially for the time. The original music of this film is pretty unique and fitting (by Bernard Herrmann). Overall, this is a very good movie, and I'm surprised that it's not so well-known. I really didn't want to make comparisons throughout these reviews, but there is no doubt that "Joker" was inspired from "Taxi Driver".