We never learn much about Travis Bickle, yet the talent involved makes him a compelling figure

Rating: 7/10 (27 March 2002)

"Taxi Driver" begins so ominously (with blinking neon lights and rising street heat which seem like symbolisms for Hell itself) that people watching it for the first time automatically prepare themselves for a Masterpiece. Martin Scorsese's film is indeed quite good, but it's also flawed, murky and confusing, talky in the wrong places, and features such an over-hyped performance by young Jodie Foster as a pre-teen prostitute that I imagine most viewers will be let down by what amounts to an extremely minor role. Robert De Niro's work is the centerpiece of the picture, playing haunted New York City cabbie Travis Bickle, a man so consumed by the evil on the streets that he eventually stoops to its level. Bickle is a human time bomb; he's ready to explode, and it wouldn't matter where he was or what he was doing. The movie doesn't make any apologies for Bickle, but I didn't buy some of the reasons for his actions (it's briefly alluded to that Travis wants to "save" Foster from her sordid existence, but one gets the feeling he just wants to shoot at somebody...anybody). I've seen better movies about people-as-targets, the City As Hell and urban alienation, but I think the reason why so many people remember "Taxi Driver" and keep returning to it is Scorsese's style. The filmmaker has an unflinching, fearless ability to take on the most neurotic of outcasts while wedging his camera into the most provocative or squalid of surroundings. His picture moves at a staccato rhythm--and it has too much chatter--yet the seamy, sticky ambiance is so tangible you can practically feel it on your fingertips. Cybill Shepherd does excellent work as a beautiful woman stumping for a senator's presidential bid who comes into contact with Bickle; Harvey Keitel is oddly-placed but compelling as a smug, self-assured pimp; and Oscar-nominated Foster, while just a bit self-conscious, does well with a sketchy role. De Niro, who was also nominated for an Oscar, is so adept at these kind of misfit characterizations that we're ready to fill in the blanks left behind by screenwriter Paul Schrader. We don't really learn much about Travis Bickle--deliberately, one assumes--yet De Niro and Scorsese draw us into his dark world. It's a fascinating portrait. *** from ****