Profoundly disturbing but brilliant tale of urban isolation, obsession, and rage

Rating: 10/10 (15 October 2017)

Arguably Martin Scorsese's best film, writer Paul Schrader's best screenplay, and actor Robert De Niro's best performance. De Niro plays unstable Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle who the film follows down his rabbit hole of isolation, obsession, and eventual violent rage. The plot, as it is, has Bickle working nights as a NYC cab driver, becoming infatuated with pretty campaign worker, Cybill Shepherd, but when he sours that relationship due to his weird behavior, he becomes obsessed with saving pre-teen hooker Jodie Foster from her slimy pimp, Harvey Keitel. The plot could easily have become a simple Charles Bronson/grindhouse tale of urban vigilantism, but it's much more than that. Much has been written about "Taxi Driver" in terms of urban decay, isolation, desire, sex, misogyny, and as a critique of the media, all by others more eloquent than me, so I won't even try, but I will say that on a visceral level, the film is a ferociously disturbing piece of filmmaking. The audience is slowly drawn closer and closer to Bickle's madness, in a similar way to "Repulsion" or "Peeping Tom.". The audience almost understands and sympathizes with his where his thinking is coming from and are found rooting for him against the even more despicable of characters during the film's disturbing finale. Scorsese has presented a New York City that truly is a brutal urban nightmare, but at the same time has created surreal hallucinatory vision of NYC that may only be Bickle's perception of reality. Also of note, the film features memorable performances by Victor Argo, Peter Boyle, and Albert Brooks. Additionally, this was the final film scored by Bernard Herrmann and he delivers a memorably unrelenting and oppressive score that ranks among his finest. Overall, "Taxi Driver" is one of the finest pieces of cinema ever committed to celluloid, though due to it's profoundly disturbing nature will likely deny the film wide appeal.