Taxi Driver is a 1976 psychological thriller movie. The film was produced by Bill/Phillips Productions and Italo/Judeo Productions and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Taxi Driver was written by Paul Schrader and directed by Martin Scorsese.
The story is a disturbed loner named Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York cabbie. Over the nights Travis becomes more and more detached from reality and things only get worse when we meets campaign worker Betsy and 12 year old prostitute Iris. After those encounters Travis has become obsessed with wanting to assassinate the presidential candidate and saving Iris.
My Thoughts
One thing that made the movie an all time classic is Robert De Niro's performance. I don't know what I can say about his acting in this film that hasn't already been said? The guy just hits it out of the park with this role and the performance has earned it's place as being one of the examples of the best acting seen in cinema.
What also makes Taxi Driver a amazing flick is Martin Scorsese's directing. Now yes he deserves credit for everything that appeared on the camera. But what I especially give praise to his directing he the way he was able to accomplish some beautiful and gritty shots. The movie budget was so tight that not only did the actors have to take pay cuts but they couldn't even afford to light up a couple of street lights, they had to wait for New York to light itself up. And yet despite all of those set backs Scorsese STILL gave us an amazing film.
Another to give praise to the film is the dialogue. Yes we have the classic "You talkin' to me?" line but there's also other great bits too. Such as "I think someone should just take this city and just...just flush it down the f*ckin' toilet" and "You're in Hell, and You're gonna die in a Hell, just like the rest of 'em". And many other greats lines such as those.
The other thing that makes Taxi Driver one of the greats is the tone/feel of the film. The tone is very dark and cynical which makes sense given that our main character is exactly like that. But when watching the movie you can almost feel how grimy New York is.
The last thing I'll praise the movie for is the ending. What I love about it is there's many ways to look it. Even though yes Martin Scorsese did give an answer of what it all meant. But it's still fun to figure out what you or somebody else thought of it.
Taxi Driver has earned ever bit of praise it gets. Robert De Niro was fantastic, Martin Scorsese's directing for the film is great despite some problems behind the scenes, the tone & feel of the movie was one of the many highlights, and the ending is something interesting.
My final rating is A Must Watch
Okay everyone, I'm finished with this review. Come back on Thursday Jan 11th for my Cinematic Disaster review of Gigli. Until then enjoy the rest of your day.
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