Good movie-the 'unattended' life

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2009)

Just watched it. Very good. Speaking of Travis being a loner, he didn't speak much during the entire movie. But when he talked, he was quite alright. The thing uneasy about him was that he carried a toady smile in his face when talking to strangers, e.g. to the body guard/FBI of the Senator. That was probably from long time isolation. He was a veteran, but of course the movie says nothing directly about the war he experienced, whether it caused his mental unstableness etc. In fact, he was only 26 when retired from the war. Still too young to be a bitter person right away. Well, he was kind of bitter, when talking to the girl he was wooing at about her male coworker, and to the child prostitute about the gangster. He talked mean about man when was with a girl he liked. He talked mean about them when he didn't know them. Of course, I am not saying the gangster was any good. On the contrary, the producer of the movie was not making any judgment during the entire show. He didn't judge whatever Travis was doing right or wrong, nor what the Senator was doing, nor the prostitute, nor her parents. I don't know which side the Senator was on. In fact, that politician was only a small chess piece in this guy's emotional world. He would wish him success or planning to assassinate him only because of his tension with the girl he was wooing at. In fact, the movie says he was not listening to the politician, and did not mention whether the politician was listening to him or not. (a different way to say no to politician in the 70s than "Forrest Gump" would, milder, but same ironic.)
The only 'cool' moments of Travis was when he was purchasing guns. (Nobody cares about you when you are not purchasing, huh?) Other time he seemed to be going downwards. He wasn't even very handsome when he used the guns. (Sure. Like in Kurosawa's movies, Samurai were always awkward and nervous when using a sword.) When Travis got angry at society and wanted to do some --, he chose two things: going up to assassinate the Senator, and going down to help a child prostitute. Quite unsurprised, he wasn't successful when trying the 'up' way, but he did get a hell of mess going the 'down' way. And sarcastically enough, he became a city hero in the newspaper. Well, I thought he would just end up dead in the battle, or didn't die but saw the prostitute showing up again. But that didn't happen, or in the later case was not told. He got a visit from the girl who rejected seeing him long ago. She stared at him in an amazed and perplexed look. Arranging that girl to show up again actually make Travis kind of comforted, but he was afraid to appear pathetic. He didn't talk much and ran off, quite typical. In the end there was just the green and red flashing lights of New York. Quite often when people get a cut in emotional life, from love, war or social harshness, they couldn't cure it themselves, and nobody else could attend to them either. There were always something that happened in our lives and we didn't know how to deal with it, called the 'unattended', which I thought was the theme of this movie. When Travis wasn't emotionally living in a healthy way, he didn't actually know that. He was just trying to run away from it. I wish in many years later he wouldn't look back and think of the girl, or the prostitute, just like he shouldn't look at the dirty night of New York city.