Taxi Driver

'You talkin' to me?'  Yeah, that's from Taxi Driver

I think my expectations for this movie were way too high.  ‘Taxi Driver’ was one of those movies that I thought of as a classic, heard so many good things about, and noticed a 98% rating on rottentomatoes.com.  So I just assumed that I would watch the movie, be thrilled by every second of it, and give it a 10 in my review.  Well, this movie isn’t going to get a 10, not even close.

Robert DeNiro plays Travis Bickle, a new taxi driver in the city of New York.  Travis can best be described as a lonely guy, he doesn’t really seem to fit anywhere in the grand scheme of things.  I get the feeling that Travis thinks he’s more than just a normal guy, that everyone should notice him but for some reason they don’t.  Travis works the late shift, roughly 6 pm to 6 am, and gets to see all the scum that New York has to offer.  But, like all of us, Travis does his job and tries not to let it get to him.  Travis comes into contact with two women in this movie who have a major impact on his life.  The first is Betsy who works at campaign headquarters for presidential hopeful Charles Palantine.  Travis takes her out for coffee one afternoon and she actually seems to like him….that is until the second date when he takes her to a porno theater.  She doesn’t talk to him anymore after that.  The second is Iris (Jodie Foster), a 12 year old prostitute whom Travis feels the need to save.

There is a transformation in Travis at some point in this movie where he decides he wants to kill some people.  I can pinpoint the scene where the transformation seems to happen but I can’t really tell you why it happens.  In case you’re wondering, the scene I’m referring to is when Travis picks up a guy (Martin Scorsese) who claims he’s going to kill his wife because she’s cheating on him.  Anyway, Travis buys a bunch of guns and tries to kill senator Palantine but fails.  So instead he decides to go kill Iris’ pimp and the people associated with her becoming a prostitute.  Travis has a big shootout with the guys, gets shot in the neck and seems like he’s about to die as the scene ends.  Well, he doesn’t, in fact he is glorified in the newspapers for being the one who helped Iris to get back to her family and took some bad guys out in the process.  It would seem that Travis finally got what he always wanted, which was to be noticed.

I think the thing that bugged me about ‘Taxi Driver’ was that I never really understood why Travis decided he needed to kill these people.  Was it his rejection by Betsy that set him off?  Was he sick and tired of the lowlifes he had to drive around at night?  Was he really that obsessed with being noticed that he had to go to such an extreme?  I just don’t know.  All I know is I’m going to try and keep my expectations low for the next “classic” I watch, maybe I’ll get better results.

Feel free to give me your opinions on this one.  There must be some reason why everyone thinks this movie is so good.

Score: 6 out of 10