Taxi Driver [Blu-ray]

Taxi Driver [Blu-ray] Review

I'd heard Taxi Driver was a great movie, and with Scorcese at the helm and all kinds of famous actors in it to boot, I was expecting good things. Nor was I disappointed. Taxi Driver is a special movie. It's a character study on one hand, a philisophical treatise on the other. It simultaneously entertains with it's sultry shots of 1975 NYC, lots of good dialogue between the characters, and a story line that unfolds naturally - people who appreciate photography will especially like Taxi Driver - it's a joy to watch Scorcese tell this tale.

The movie is accessible on many levels, the acting is fantastic and the story itself, subtle, violent, occasionally funny - and finally, something to think about for those that are paying attention.

SPOILERS

The thing to notice is when he's trying to decide if he should 'do a bad thing' and he's talking to one of the other taxi drivers asking for advice. One of the things the guy says as he tries to talk him down is that we are what we do.. like you do a job, and that becomes who you are. This movie is never very 'in your face' about it's message if it could be said to have one at all. But what does happen? Either way, Travis is kind of a sick puppy with the desire to kill. When that desire is aimed at the politician, he's a wacko (he wants to whack him because the girl he loves and who rejected him, is working on his campaign - this would be a kind of revenge, showing who 'has the power' - in his twisted mind).

On the other hand, he meets the underage prostitute (Jodie Foster), devolops a protective streak towards her and ultimately ends up offing her pimp and other would-be enablers of her profession. This happens somewhat by accident. His first mission was to off the politicician. He takes up Jody Foster's mission as kind of a side inspiration and does the deed before he gets a chance to kill the politician. When the smoke clears he's a hero. An accidental hero. Again, the words of the older taxi driver are fulfilled: 'You are what you do'.

The IRONY is that it could so easily have gone the other way. What would he have been if he'd managed to hit the politician? Had it gone as he'd originally planned, he'd certainly have been nothing less than the 'trash' he despised - from any rational person's point of view. How much of what we do is up to chance, luck, or as fate would have it? The movie seems to unconsciously ask this question. Travis is a 'walking contradiction'. He hates the scum, the sickos, the perverts, but finally, it's only a stroke of fate that distinguishes him from them.

Taxi Driver is a great ride, and there are many reasons to see it.

Loved the mohawk. This movie is hard as nails.

Taxi Driver [Blu-ray] Overview

Taxi Driver is the definitive cinematic portrait of loneliness and alienation manifested as violence. It is as if director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader had tapped into precisely the same source of psychological inspiration ("I just knew I had to make this film," Scorsese would later say), combined with a perfectly timed post-Watergate expression of personal, political, and societal anxiety. Robert De Niro, as the tortured, ex-Marine cab driver Travis Bickle, made movie history with his chilling performance as one of the most memorably intense and vividly realized characters ever committed to film. Bickle is a self-appointed vigilante who views his urban beat as an intolerable cesspool of blighted humanity. He plays guardian angel for a young prostitute (Jodie Foster), but not without violently devastating consequences. This masterpiece, which is not for all tastes, is sure to horrify some viewers, but few could deny the film's lasting power and importance. --Jeff Shannon

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