De Niro standing in front of the mirror practicing his insults ('You talking' to me?') is one of the landmarks of contemporary Hollywood cinema

Rating: 9/10 (29 November 2008)

The opening images of the yellow taxi cab moving slowly through clouds of steam, seems an authentic vision of the city as netherworld, a landscape of gaudy nightmares Travis himself is an unnerving combination of psychopath and naive innocent, a victim whose attempts to put the World to Rights produce yet more victims
Like other troubled heroes of the era, Travis is an ex-Marine, working nights as a New York taxi driver, observing with increasing disgust the human flotsam that comes into his cab His attempts at human contact are a failure An icy political worker whom he takes on a date (Cybil Shepherd) is repelled by his taste of porno films He tries to rescue Iris, a teenage hooker (Jodie Foster), but increasingly his mind is under tension, and, prevented in his attempt to assassinate a Presidential candidate, he murders Iris' pimp Sport (Harvey Keitel) and a client in an orgy of what he intends a redemptive violence
Scorsese's film: a study of urban alienation, and a restless, fluid camera contributed to a view of New York as hell on earth, and mirrored the protagonist's growing insanity