Best movie ever - a true masterpiece and a sure 10

Rating: 10/10 (2 March 2002)

Well - when I watched this film for the first time, it was on video. I couldn't get it out of my head and watched it five nights in a row. The very same movie. This movie. I have seen movies five times before - but not five nights in a row. Never ever. Not even close. And I have seen my share of movies.
This happened some years ago, and since then I have watched Taxi Driver quite often. Martin Scorsese became my favorite director with movies like Goodfellas, Casino and many more.
Goodfellas and Casino are great stories. I wouldn't say that Taxi Driver is.

!!!Possible spoilers ahead!!!
Taxi Driver is raw. It is told in dark pictures with one character in the center. Every other character in the movie are just passing by this character. Robert De Niro is Travis Brickle - and he's perhaps the most masculine man portraited in a movie ever. And not in a very nice way. And definetly in a grotesk version. Travis is single minded. He doesn't care how he lives. He makes money because he don't know what else to spend his time with. He don't know how to use them, but kills time watching porn movies. When he sees a woman he likes, he follows her, observe her, and suddenly he attack. He has no idea of how woman thinks or what they want. Later he finds a mission. Wanting to save a woman (or more a girl), but she doesn't want to be saved. He wants to bring the world back in order, after it has been misbalanced. The reason in the film is the Vietnam War, but it could have been so much else. It is impossible to make this film with a woman in the main role. It is a male universe falling down. Like in "Falling down" with Michael Douglas. Travis is just breaking down slow and inside himself. His surroundings doesn't understand it. They doesn't even see it coming.

I think most men one time or the other has behaved like Travis does in part of the movie. Perhaps we haven't shot a couple of guys trying to protect a young prostituted girl, or shaved our head and thought seriously about killing the president. Hopefully we haven't. But I think most in periods have felt somehow the same isolation. Felt that you were the only one in the world where the rest of it just rotated around you with all it's filth, and you just wished to do a difference. Not by killing anyone! But perhaps just save one. Like Nicolas Cage tries to in Scorseses newest movie: "Bringing out the dead" (there in many ways are very related to Taxi Driver, but doesn't catches the audience the same way).
Oh, I could go on and on with this movie, but just do yourself a favour and see it. It is not just a movie. It's a feeling. An expression. See it on a rainy night. Find a cinema that shows it on a rerun (and it only makes the experience better if you have to drive long to get to the cinema). See it with your soulmate or see it alone. But don't say a word while you see it. As long as this movie is on, you are in Travis' world. And it is dark and not very cheerful. But it's touching. As a painting. It's a piece of art - and it is the greatest movie ever made!