One of the best ever

We watch with a sense of disquiet as the life of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) begins to unfold, there is a lurking menace in those eyes, in that crooked smile that you cannot put a finger on, but which is as real as the sordidness of his surroundings.

Travis is a man at the brink of losing it. He cannot sleep, he works nights and is constantly in touch with the people he thinks are scum of the earth.

He alienates the two women he encounters in the movie, the political campaigner and the child prostitute. He also has a misplaced sense of heroism, the conviction of the righteousness of his own actions that is almost scary. It is this conviction that causes him to attempt to kill the presidential candidate and eventually leads to the bloody climax when he attempts to 'save' Iris from the world she inhabits.

Taxi Driver is a powerful movie, I think it works because all of us identify with Travis at some level, we have all been lonely, we have all faced rejection, we just handle it better.

Finally, Taxi Driver had some of the best people to deliver the goods, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keital, Martin Scorcese & Paul Scnader. It hardly ever gets better than this.