"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere"

Rating: 10/10 (24 April 2018)

Have you ever had that feeling where you're alone. You feel like your isolated from the world. You move into a big city and you feel scared. or maybe you're trying to escape something like a traumatizing experience. That is the main message of Taxi Driver.
Travis Bickle(Robert De Niro)plays a Vietnam veteran who is suffering from insomnia. He moves to New York and decides to become a taxi driver. He feels like a loner due to him being a Midwestern and him entering a big city in unnerving to him. He develops an obsession with porno theaters and becomes disgusted by the world around him which is full of prostitutes, drug addicts and pimps. He tries to rescue an underage prostitute named Iris(Jodie Foster) from the world she's living on. Will he succeed or will he die a hero like in war?
Taxi Driver is the definitive term for a 70's sleaze movie. it's set in New York, it takes place mostly at night, involves violence, bloodshed and sex. You can sympathize with Travis about what's happening to him, he's an outcast who feels like he doesn't belong. The city is also perfectly done too. It's almost like Travis is living in a garbage can, where people discard the things they don't want.
To me, Robert De Niro is Travis Bickle. He's a guy who almost everyone can sympathize with. And you also understand his motivations too. Jodie Foster also does a really good job too. She can come across as an innocent girl but you're not sure if she likes what she does. The other supporting characters do a really good job too. Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Albert Brooks and Peter Boyle all provide good performances that add life and sanity to the movie.
But the main stars of this movie are director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader. Schrader has said multiple times that this was partially based off a true story and you can tell that the way he writes his dialogue can come close to home. Scorsese was a new director when this was released and this is one hell of a movie to have as one of your firsts. You can also tell that Scorsese adds some of his memories from when he lived in New York into parts of the movie.
What else can I say, Taxi Driver is not only one of the best movies to come out of the 70's, it's also one of the best movies ever made. It deals with a lot of things that people can relate too. Go see it. it's definitely worth your time.