Too much credit is given to Taxi Driver.

Rating: 5/10 (2 February 2005)

This movie is slow. Everything about it is slow. The scenes are long and dragged out. Characters repeatedly pause and have little characteristics and habits that make them stand out.
Unfortunately, the slow pace kills any tension I would have had. And those traits were annoying me throughout, getting most of my attention, instead of the plot.
Rest assured though, I wasn't in any harm of missing the meaning of this film because I missed out on the plot: it seemed to be missing as well.
Robert DeNiro stars as Travis Bickle, a marine who was discharged and now wants to work long hours. He gets to, driving a taxi, and he's real happy about it, the long hours that is.
He actually hates driving a taxi, because, though he says he'll go anywhere and take anyone to anywhere, in doing so, it's opened his eyes to the 'scum' on the streets. He's real upset about that.
He meets this girl, Betsy (Cybill Sheperd), who he suddenly feels the need to stalk, until he decides her manager for the campaign she's working to promote (for Palantine) is 'bad' for her. Then he decides he needs to intervene, by telling her how beautiful she is. She's convinced he's sane and nice, and goes out with him. After a few days, he ends up taking her to an X-rated film, because those are the movies he goes to. She storms out of the theater, and doesn't give him any chance to explain. That annoyed me, because she was acting all high and mighty. But I can't be angry at her, because Travis was being the real idiot, "I didn't know you didn't like these kinds of films. If I knew you didn't, I would have taken you somewhere else." Nice job.
Next DeNiro meets Iris. He wants to help her get off the street, because she's too young to be in her line of 'business.' DeNiro decides she should be at home, and in school. Of course he's right, and it's upsetting that she disagrees. It's almost cool that he decides he needs to help her out.
So then DeNiro buys a lot of guns from this guy who claims every gun he has is a "really nice gun." DeNiro should have killed that salesman and taken all the guns. But he didn't, because killing random people clearly isn't the point of this movie.
Next DeNiro practices being tough. Then he wants to kill the president. Then he wants Betsy back. Wait, those might be out of order.
The problem with Taxi Driver is the fact that Travis's character is so one-dimensional, yet people impose depth into him. He basically wants to save this girl from throwing her life away, then attempts to kill himself after he does it. He writes a would-be suicide letter, which was entirely pointless nonetheless, considering he lied all the way through it to his parents.
The whole deal with the president felt like some sub-plot idea that fell through but the director decided to keep it in there to lengthen the movie.
The most agonizing scene is clearly when DeNiro follows the Wiz out to his cab on that night and they end up telling each other, "I don't know what you're saying" and "Maybe I don't know what I'm saying." Thankfully, these two aren't the only ones who don't know what they're saying - the audience knows it, and hopefully someone tells Paul Shrader, the writer, that he clearly didn't know it either.
The effects of the shootout? Old and tired and boring.
The disturbing nature of the film? Missing, blame time.
This may have been great back in 1976 - but there are thousands of movies that have been released thus far, and a high number of them are more interesting, better paced, with a better script, and a more sound plot. From the reference list alone I can pull out several I recommend over Taxi Driver: True Romance, Natural Born Killers, Leon, Desperado, Collateral.
Let's not jump to conclusions and assume Taxi Driver is a bad film in any way. It certainly isn't - but it's done itself in over time. There's nothing left here that you can't get somewhere else, where it's done better.