Taxi Driver [DVD] [1976] [1999]

'Taxi Driver' is a 1976 release starring Robert de Niro as the film's anti hero Travis Bickle. Bickle is a Vietnam War veteran who returns to New York and becomes disgusted with the moral decay of the city. In order to distract himself and overcome his insomnia, he takes a job as a night-shift taxi driver and visits adult movie theatres. Later he spies an 'angel' named Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and becomes besotted with her. After taking her to see an adult movie, she is disgusted and rejects him. Bickle is devastated by the rejection and from this point on his life starts to unravel. He begins to harbour violent thoughts that need to find an outlet. He eventually finds a target for his anger: Matthew 'Sport' Higgins (Harvey Keitel) who pimps out young girls, including a 12-year-old Iris Steensma (Jodie Foster). Bickle takes pity on Iris and promises to return her to her family and a better life in Pittsburgh. The stage is set for a violent finale and very violent it is. 'Taxi Driver' was directed by Martin Scorsese. One of the themes running through his considerable body of work is the presence of good and evil vying for supremacy in the soul of one man. This theme would find its greatest expression in Scorsese movie adaption of Nikos Kazantzakis' book 'The Last Temptation of Christ' in which the soul of Jesus is the arena where spirit and flesh do battle. In 'Taxi Driver' it is Travis Bickle who plays the role of 'Jesus', an avenging angel who wants to rescue sweet Iris from her evil pimp 'Sport'. If this has to be done with guns and knives, then so be it. There is irony running through this movie and it is no coincidence that Scorsese was a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock. Incidentally, the moody score to 'Taxi Driver' was composed by Bernard Herrmann who had scored seven films for Hitchcock, including 'Vertigo' (1958) and 'Psycho' (1960). Sadly, Herrmann passed away on December 24, 1975, in his hotel in Los Angeles the day after completing the 'Taxi Driver' soundtrack. This is definitely an iconic 70s movie and de Niro's portrayal of a man on the edge won him an Oscar nomination. (He lost out to Peter Finch who won Best Actor for 'Network'.) Definitely not to be missed.

Probably one of the best films of all time.

This is a brilliant film; for me it's aesthetically beautiful (the Taxi bumper shots showing the bright lights of New York are stunning), it's also got a lovely melancholic jazz soundtrack that highlights Travis' perceived pointlessness and ambling in and through life.(Plot spoilers) The story is simple: an insomniac wants to better spend his sleepless nights so enrols to drive taxis, slowly but surely falling into the abyss of loneliness and insanity. He witnesses the depraved and seedy nature of New York at night (prostitutes, drug dealers et al.) and brands them the scum of the earth. This, ironically, coming from a man who regularly visits dirty movie theatres. At the same time, we see Travis develop obsessions with Betsy who is a campaign worker for Palantine, a presidential candidate. Soon after their relationship develops, Travis makes the mistake of taking her to one of the aforementioned dirty movies, which immediately sees an end to this relationship. Travis later angrily confronts her and makes various violent remarks towards her, the first sign of his unstable mental state. Throughout the film Travis encounters a young child prostitute who he feels is being forced against her will to ply her trade. Meanwhile he begins training and preparing to assassinate Palantine. When it comes to it however, he fails to do so after being spotted by Secret Service Agents before he attempts the assassination. His desire to exact violence upon those he despises (Palantine for his connection to Betsy) leads him to the location of the child prostitute who he feels he must help escape from prostitution. Therefore, he murders her pimp, the bouncer and her customer (these being the scum of the earth that he despises). He is injured in the battle and fails to commit suicide. Later he awakes from a coma to a hero's welcome for helping Iris (the child prostitute) return to her parents and Betsy showing renewed interest in Travis. The irony here being that had he been successful in assassinating Palantine he would have been deemed evil but now he is a hero.On note of the Blu-ray itself: WOW! For a film made in 70s this is one crisp picture!! I can't rave enough about how good the picture quality is; I must compare it to the recently released Star Wars Blu-rays and Taxi Driver blows those away. Yes, there are certain scenes where the camera pans and it seems as if the screen is jolting a bit and other scenes aren't quite as good quality as others but boy are the HQ scenes GOOD and the Low Quality scenes are still dozens of times higher than I could've hoped for in a 70s film.Bravo to Scorsese, De Niro et al.!

This is one of the Martin Scorsese movie's that you have to see, it is a bit of a slow paced movie but that just gives it time to tell you the story and let you try to understand Robert De Niro's character, and why he feels the way he does, when he looks at his surroundings in New York at that time. If you are not familiar with what I mean then look at movies based in New York in the 1970's and compare them with movies based in New York today, and you can see how much New York has changed. The 1970's been very sleazy, covered in graffiti and crime infested in a lot of areas, compared to how much cleaner New York is today. There is still crime in New York, just like there is in most other big cities around the world, but you can definitely see the difference. This is a good movie and a must see for fans of Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese.

Spooky. Starts off as just another film. Gets darker slowly, but, surely. Robert De Niro is brilliant in this. I felt quite uneasy after watching it. Highly recommended

classic film and very well done of its time good amount of extras and good price