A Shocking yet strangely dated gem of the 70s.

Rating: Null/10 (14 October 2003)

Looking at the "world" we live in (in 2003) movies like " Dirty Harry" or "Death Wish" or even "Taxi Driver" seem like throw-backs to simpler times! YES, simpler times when only "scum" or "thugs" or "pimps" were the people who could hurt us or change our lives in a negative way! Just watch the news!! Today there is (virtually) no way of knowing who are the crime kings or the gangsters! No longer is the "big city" the only place to get robbed,raped,kidnapped or killed! Nowadays with the internet and cell phones we have sex,drugs and weopans literally at our fingertips! Prostitutes,pimps,dealers,queers no longer NEED to "come out at night" to fill our city streets! Which brings us to 1976 and "Taxi Driver" a surprisingly hard and violent exercise in how one lonely VietNam vet attempts to cope with the "crumbling" world around him! This film is well-photographed and well acted.But it's strange twist with it's main character becomming a "hero" after killing three people is just too implausible even if he did shoot those men in his "defense" of a 12-year-old prostitute! Sorry,but he would NOT have been aquitted-even in 1976! It would be very interesting to see the same character in a modern-day sequel (say "Taxi Driver-2003"??) Travis Bickle would probably look at the world TODAY and REALLY shoot himself in the head!!