After all the flowers are gone in post-sixties America

Rating: 9/10 (7 October 2001)

This is one of those milestone films in America cinema about which millions of words have been written, and everybody who's anybody in filmdom has seen.
It received a mixed reception when it appeared twenty-five years ago, and of course the Academy did not reward it.
Taxi Driver remains a difficult movie to evaluate. On the one hand there can be no doubt about the brilliance of Martin Scorsese's direction in which he makes excruciatingly real the street level life of a taxicab driver in the big city. Harsh, multi-hued lighting of predatory street scenes, the cheap, bleak interior of the taxi driver's apartment, the vacuous phrases and promises of the politician, the brutality of guns and knives, the sordidness of things left in the backseat of cabs, and the gritty litter of the streets have the effect of immersing us into the cabby's world. Nor can there be any doubt about the brilliance of Robert De Niro in the title role.
He portrays the alienated, misfitted psychotic mentality of Vietnam vet Joshua Bickle poignantly, compellingly, and with a larger than life lividity. Jodie Foster is the very essence of a post-sixties flower child morphed into a twelve and a half year old prostitute. Her childlike ability to find sustenance amid the objective horror of her life compelled our sympathy. Foster's flawless projection of the little girl's pathetic street-wise facade rightfully catapulted her to national attention. Cybill Shepherd was also excellent as a post-Kennedy era political strawberry, and Harvey Keitel was very good as the sleazy pimp, as was Peter Boyle as a cabby philosopher.
On the other hand, the stagy blood splashing toward the end, and the lingering thereon, seemed a little cheap, as though Scorsese did not have complete faith in his production and thought a violence fix was needed to satisfy his audience. Also the fantasy ending in which the unlikely happens like a cartoon joke seemed a contrivance from someone not sure about the import of his movie. The scene in which Cybill Shepherd enters De Niro's empty cab, seemingly to entice him, plays at first like a fantasy, but after he deposits her on the curb, we know it is supposed to be real. Incidentally, the fact that he doesn't notice her until he sees her in his rearview mirror, although he walked up to the cab with her in it, suggests something hurriedly dreamed up during production as a quick commentary on what has gone before.
Nonetheless the ending is transcended because Scorsese had a great movie all along, with outstanding acting and a compelling story artfully shot, leading to a socially-conscience experience vividly reflecting the disillusionment of post sixties America.
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)