Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver (1976)

Runtime: 113 minutes

Directed by: Of course, Martin Scorsese

Starring: Robert De Niro, Albert Brooks, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster

From: Columbia

Here’s the first of a two-part deal where I was fortunate to watch a pair of famous 70’s films on the big screen. I watched this on Tuesday night; AMC Theatres showed it on that night and Saturday night at various locations across the country. I went to Altamonte Springs to check it out. Believe it or not, I had never seen this movie before aside from some brief moments.

I’ll admit something right off the bat: I know it’ll be considered blasphemous to many, but I’ve only seen a few of Scorsese’s movies, and while I rank very highly Casino and especially Goodfellas, Mean Streets did nothing for me at all and Raging Bull just left me cold. As for this movie…

I’m sure you know the general plot but to be brief, the movie is about Vietnam War vet Travis Bickle (De Niro, delivering a tremendous performance) who lives in New York City. He’s an insomniac so he decides to work for a taxi company at nights, and he runs into a wide variety of (usually) seedy people. He gets disgusted with those types. He also meets up with Betsy (Shepherd) and a young child prostitute, Iris (Foster), who has Harvey Keitel as a pimp… and oh, what a pimp he is. He sports long black hair and dresses in ridiculous 70’s clothing. His role is small but it took a lot of effort to me not to laugh at his appearance. Anyhow, it all builds up to when Bickle snaps and he loses control and goes on a rampage.

As for what I liked about the movie, there’s the performances. As I already mentioned, Robert does a great job as Travis. You can clearly see him slowly but surely snap. The other cast members also do a commendable job. The setting of a run-down New York City is done well. There’s enough tension, the score works well with the film, and there are some very memorable shots, and I’m talking about with the cinematography, and not with Bickle shooting firearms.

However, with that said, I can’t say I ended up really liking the film in the end. The plot was just structured weird for me, and it seemed to meander at times. I didn’t really need to see an ultra-annoying Scorsese have a small role in the movie as a guy who wants to kill his wife for cheating on him, for example. But, it’s the final 20 or so minutes that really turned me off.

I don’t like to go spoiler-heavy here, but in this case I have to. A lot of time is spent building up Bickle snapping and going on a rampage. So he does one day. He shaves his hair into a Mohawk (because it looks cool, I guess) and he tries to assassinate the presidential candidate Betsy works for. Why… because Betsy ended up turning him down due to his poor way with the ladies? I suppose so. Travis fails in a spectacular manner but he’s able to get away without getting spotted. He then goes after the people responsible for Iris being a child prostitute. That’s definitely violent and all (so much so that Marty had to desaturate the film so that all the blood wasn’t so bright, or some such thing to allow it not to be cut; it’s definitely graphic, but the look of those moments is just distracting as the film then looks so different from the rest) but then I was stunned when he wasn’t killed by the cops that showed up, but instead survives and shows up again with a head full of hair and he has a happy meeting with Betsy. What?

Yeah, I know after the fact that there have been several interpretations of the final moments, including it was a dream… that said, how the final 20 minutes turned out and the odd plotting didn’t light my world on fire, to say the least. I’d rather stick with Goodfellas or Casino than watch this again. At least those movies didn’t have what look to be a manufactured and contrived “happy ending” to a downbeat story.

I’ll be back Saturday afternoon with a special recap/review of the night I had in Tampa on Wednesday.