Taxi, get me out of here.

Rating: 3/10 (28 June 2006)

What Martin Scorsese did to Taxi Driver is what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans.
There are 2 types of Scorsese movies. Great stories wrecked by Scorsese; like Casino, and awful movies made worse by Scorsese; like Aviator. So where does Taxi Driver fall? Right along side with Casino, an intriguing story and characters ruined by an incompetent Martin Scorsese.
The story revolves around a man (Robert DeNiro) who takes a job as a taxi driver, and wants to get his life organized, finally does so when he meets a teen prostitute (Jodie Foster), and wants to help her regain her life.
Robert DeNiro's performance and character he plays is definitely inspirational, along with his line "You talking to me?", which this movie is credited for starting.
But even great stories with great actors can still fail miserably due to lousy presentation cause of a flimsy director, namely Martin Scorsese. He ruined Taxi Driver by making it dull, lame and impotent, as he did with his other films. Out of all the directors, like John Carpenter and George Lucas, they normally ruin masterpieces the second time around with remakes, special editions, and prequels/sequels. Scorsese wrecks masterpieces the first time around.
The story alone is enough to warrant the movie a 7/10, but the awful directing renders Taxi Driver to 2.5/10. If directed by anyone except Martin Scorsese, then Taxi Driver had a better chance of winning best picture. But with Scorsese, Taxi Driver is thankful that the Razzies didn't appear until the early 1980's.
But the character study and story are too much to ignore, and demands a remake without a movie wrecker like Martin Scorsese.