This is the type of film I like, and I didn't enjoy it at all

Rating: 2/10 (30 December 2005)

I like character studies, I like De Niro, I like urban movies.
Given that, I was somewhat embarrassed to have reached 38 years old and not managed to see a film much ballyhooed as a classic. Instead, I should have been thankful. It's not just that the pacing is slow, the music vaguely irritating, and the story lacking.
The problem is that a character study needs to be about someone who *has* a character. We need to see development and we need to care about them. Travis doesn't have a well defined character. His mental instability ebbs and flows, is never properly defined (probably a good idea from the director's viewpoint), and his actions seem random rather than prompted by illness. Does rejection by a "good" person make him re-classify everyone as bad and lead to his vigilante-ism? Or is he attempting to re-cast Iris as a "good" person? Who knows? Certainly not the viewer as no clues are given.
Even if we draw a veil over that issue, and the ludicrous idea that he would be seen as a hero for deliberately killing several people, the lack of rationale for, well, anything, makes empathy with the title character impossible. Frankly, there is no reason to care what happens to him, and so, ultimately, no reason to watch this movie.
"Rocky" roundly trounced Taxi Driver at the Oscars. Well done, class of '77