My extended review of the film

Rating: Null/10 (6 May 2005)

'Taxi Driver' has deservedly earned a reputation as one of the best films of 1976. It has however also often been called one of the best films of all time. Whilst it is a brilliant piece of cinema, with a superb lead performance and some excellent camera-work, it is nevertheless hard for me to agree with the claim of it as an all-time great.
To start with the good things, 'Taxi Driver' is excellently directed. The whole atmosphere of the streets of New York is captured very well, both in the daytime and at night. The film has a great visual style, giving the streets a dreamlike quality, and it all feels very realistic, or at least up until the final 15 minutes. The cinematography captures De Niro's journey perfectly, with zooms, steady-cam and panning all carefully distributed and edited into the film.
It is a character study of a man alone and it definitely digs deep into the protagonist. We are given an insight into his loneliness and are subjected to his social ineptitude. Some of his actions still seem a tad unrealistic, like with the movie date he goes on, but in general, Travis Bickle is quite a well written character, and De Niro plays him sensationally. Every single movement on his face is carefully observed, and it left me wondering all the time whether or not he is insane.
However, this is a point when some of the quirks I have with the film occur. For a character study we get to know relatively little about Travis' background. He served in the marines and now he is a taxi driver. At one stage of the film he listens to a speech about Vietnam vets fighting for better treatment. Does this mean that Travis served in Vietnam, and did Vietnam drive him insane? We never really get to know. This is not necessarily a bad thing as such, as it adds to his mysteriousness, and the film still survives, but it did at least have me groping for a bit more.
Also while discussing De Niro's high quality performance, what pops into mind is how the other performers in the film were. And that is a bit of problem in my books. Foster received a lot of critical attention at the time of the film's release for playing a prostitute so young. Yet, looking at her in retrospect she hardly does anything with her character. Or what there is of her character, and there is not all too much there, other than that she is younger than the average prostitute, and like the average prostitute, she is sort of unhappy with her work, but yet manages to get by okay. In fact, none of the characters other than Travis' are well developed or well acted. Sure, they aren't poorly written and performed, but 'Taxi Driver' does have to survive on just one good performance and one good character. And actually, considering that, the film gets by quite well.
But all that said, Martin Scorsese has a memorable cameo role as a taxi passenger who might just be slightly madder than Travis. Interestingly, from what I've read, Scorsese only took the part because the actor assigned to play the character did not show up on the day of shooting, and despite that Scorsese actually gives off the second best performance in the film, right after De Niro's.
A couple of other points worth noting on the negative side are the meandering nature of the film and the music. Neither of these aspects subtracts much from the film, but they do add to the charge that it is not quite a perfect film. The picture wanders around quite a bit to show the nature of De Niro's mind, but this does make it a tad tiresome to follow about. As for the music used in the film, Bernard Herrmann's score is highly memorable and great to listen to, but it is more so dinner music rather than a fitting score for such a realistically grim film.
In spite of the problems that I have with the film that I have already mentioned, it is a very solid watch until the final 15 minutes. The film is all rather well put together, and if were not for the film's reputation of perfection, the points I've mentioned would be hardly worth going into detail about. But, the final 15 minutes of the film do seal it as something that I would be cautious to call perfect.
The ending is not weak, but compared to the rest of the film the final few scenes are highly unrealistic. The violence and brutality is the type that you would expect in a cartoon, and what happens to Travis in the end is so unrealistic that some have their own interpretations about a sense of reality. But it is hard to discuss this without revealing details that may ruin one's first viewing of the film.
At this point in time, I have only seen 8 films from Martin Scorsese, and 'Taxi Driver' is one of only four that I've seen twice. However, I would still be inclined to call it Scorsese's best film. It pretty well made all round, even if not pretty to watch, and perhaps it is one of the best films of the 1970s. There is however enough in it for me to have my reservations about saying how great it is.