Martin Scorsese shows his immeasurable genius with this CLASSIC movie!

Rating: 10/10 (26 March 2018)

Taxi Driver has become such a staple of modern cinema that it's become cliche to call it a classic film; needless to say I firmly stand by this status-quo for the film and I love it for the neo-noir psychological drama I see it for. This is a film truly exploiting its complicated time-period and all the post-'Nam trauma Americans suffered because of the costly tirade. And who else other than Robert De Niro to showcase a grungy story about late-1970s New York involving cinema's most famous taxi-driver: Travis Bickle?
This is not a film for casual-movie lovers: Taxi Driver is a subtle, psychological and violent film that speaks volumes about the psychology of war-veterans trying to keep a normal life for themselves. Travis Bickle is a traumatized but street-weary soul who means well, but he can't overcome his droll post-war trauma and day-to-day; he's a misunderstood man who is never truly empathized by any of the supporting characters, but the film's audience does. Travis is the sort of character made for cinema whereas any other medium would've worked against the point they're making with Travis; loneliness is hard to depict in a non-expository manner and it takes the big-screen to show how isolation really feels. Travis wants to clean the streets of what he sees as 'filth' but he has involuntarily BECOME part of that filth himself. We're with him all the way, but we can't help but feel sorry for him and his mental-illnesses that he carries with him throughout the story.
Taxi Driver is one of cinema's finest masterpieces that's still as relevant today as it was in the 1970s. It's period-cinema that still has a lot to say about mental-illness in its 70s context, and in a contemporary context. Truly a genius work of art that has no equal. 5/5 stars.