one missing ingredient

Rating: 10/10 (29 February 2004)

Don't get me wrong I love Martin Scorsese's films and I regard him as one of THE BEST film makers around today, but one thing does bug me, and that is he used Robert De Niro so many times in his films. I'm not saying that he is a bad actor but you need to watch a De Niro film that is not directed by Scorsese.
Lets take the Deer Hunter, reagrded as a classic by many and when I started a film project I wanted to look at Scorsese and a tutor suggested I look at De Niro without Scorsese which I did. After watching the Deer Hunter I realised that De Niro was an over rated actor who Scorsese had made big, (in the same way that Spielberg made Harrison Ford a big name).
Taxi Driver is a fantasic and ugly film that does not hold back, and well done to Scorsese for making this film, but the one thing I feel is that Scorsese should not have used De Niro, Harvey Kietel out acts him in the scenes they are in, (Kietel did the same in Mean Streets).
The actor I think he should have used was Steve McQueen, this would have made a very interesting combination as Scorsese films are about loners, and Steve McQueen it could be argued created an existental hero. While the film is excellent in itself I think the McQueen-Scorsese partnership would have been interesting to watch, (McQueen predicted that Scorsese would be big after watching his 1st film). Still this is an excellent film and I give this a 9 out of 10