Devastating portrait of the angry loner

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2000)

"Taxi Driver" is an absolutely harrowing journey into the world of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a lonely, confused ex-Marine driven over the edge by the world around him. Bickle is a terrifying character, but also quite sympathetic; you feel sorry for a man so lonely and depressed that he would turn to what he does.
An underlying theme of the film is that, with the world (especially in this decaying, crime-ridden pre-Giuliani New York) going to hell all around us, we react to it in different ways. Some, like a man who spies on his cheating wife (a surprisingly effective cameo by director Martin Scorcese) harbor fantasies of lashing out but do not, as far as we can tell, act on them; Bickle cannot show such restraint.
The biggest shocker is the ending; while the climax is, as expected, violent, the aftermath is completely unexpected. Without giving too much away, all I will say is that it illustrates how America celebrates the violent loner at the same time as it fears him. "Taxi Driver" is a truly brilliant film, even better than Scorcese's "Goodfellas" and "Raging Bull" - one would be hard-pressed to come up with higher praise.