"Here is a man who would not take it any more." â€“Travis Bickle

Rating: 10/10 (12 April 2010)

Human beings are generally lonely, from birth to death. Most of us make good friends between these periods. The rest aren't so lucky because they're not wired, seeing everything and everyone but not bale to relate, let alone be respected. They're "God's lonely people", and Travis Bickle, depicted by the down-to-earth yet brilliant Robert De Niro ("Mean Streets", "GoodFellas") is one of them, being the lead player of "Taxi Driver", a gut-punching, head-slamming, urban noir masterpiece directed by Mr. De Niro's longtime compeer, Martin Scorsese. If you can call it the unofficial sequel to J.D. Salinger teenage-angst tale "Catcher in the Rye", you're more than right.
A Vietnam vet who's obviously haunted (probably even before his tour of duty), Bickle suffers from insomnia. He becomes a cabbie to handle it, but it's no use. His workplace is New York City, 1970s style, and the streets are infested with pimps, hookers, pushers, junkies and other social reprobates. Therapy and religion are afterthoughts because the man's too smart and deep. Bickle tries to connect with fetching campaign worker Betsy (a pre-"Moonlighting Cybil Shepherd), but it goes south when he takes her to an intellectually pretentious porn film (I may have to see "Swedish Marriage Manual" myself). In his nadir, he gets the notion to "be somebody" by killing her boss, a presidentially ambitious senator (Leonard Harris), but is thankfully sidetracked by under-aged harlot Iris (a cherub-faced, Oscar nominated Jodie Foster), who's carelessly exploited by her sleazy pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel of "Pulp Fiction" and "Red Dragon"). When Travis saves Iris, he's just not only "God's lonely man", but a force of nature commissioned by God.
A lot has been said of "Driver", and it's all good. Scorsese sharply takes the literate script by Paul Schrader (they later worked on "Raging Bull" and "The Last Temptation of Christ") and puts it on the floor as he films this character study of a man driven to the edge, but not willing to fall without doing something of importance. On the surface, Bickle's a mentally unhinged loser, but, via honest diary-based voice-overs, he's really a man who has the rotten luck to be in the wrong era, surrounded by cynics, phonies, leeches and predators. Oscar-nominated for the role, DeNiro triumphs in Bickle's skin and inadvertently gives a thespian class while doing it. Don't get me started with the Mohawk cut.
The supporting thespians compliment him. Shepard and Foster represent polar opposites of womanhood, in age, appearance and sensibilities, which equally alienate Bickle. Keitel's scumbag role can be the exact mirror image of Shepherd's nebbish co-worker (Albert Brooks). The Wizard, a vet cabbie (the late Peter Boyle of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and Schrader's "Hardcore"), is quirky with his profane tales and wisdom with fellow cabbies, but he can't "get" to the film's anti-hero. If you can spot the two appearances by Mr. Scorsese himself in the film, you deserve three lollipops.
The score by Bernard Herrmann (his last gig here, and the film's dedicated to him) is alternatively sweet and gritty, a great soundtrack that belongs in Travis's throbbing head. D.P. Michael Chapman, under Mr. Scorsese's guidance, echoes European films behind the camera.
A magnificent barrel of celluloid, "Taxi Driver" is one of those films that has been a longtime influence. "The Wackness" (its' director Jonathon Levine was Mr. Schrader's assistant) and "Watchmen" (both film and graphic novel) are more than obvious examples. Though the film's main stage, Times Square, has been "Disney-fied" over the years, the 1976 film still resonates today because they are many Travis Bickles in our society, and you can't get rid of them with a business-restriction law.