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Taxi Driver (1976)

Director: Martin Scorsese

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6 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Martin Scorsese’s marvellous and enduring ‘Taxi Driver’ is enjoying a thirty-fifth-anniversary re-release in the same week as its star, Robert De Niro, assumes the role of jury president at Cannes – where the film won the Palme d’Or in 1976.

Right from the opening credits, as we spy a cab emerging from steam and the eyes of Travis Bickle (De Niro) reflected in his rear-view mirror, we know we’re in someone’s personal hell. Bickle, as written by Paul Schrader, is a nasty but also oddly charming time-bomb of alienation and loneliness. One minute, we give him the time of day; the next, we recoil at his violence. Later on, we might think he’s dangerous, especially around women like Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), and yet we watch him in a café with teen prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) and he seems less vile than the gangsters and pushers of her world. Bickle is complex, intriguing and never one-note. New York is the film’s other antihero, and mostly we see the city through the filter of Bickle’s paranoia. Don’t miss Scorsese’s own cameo as a nervy wreck in the back of his cab.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 2125: 11 – 17 May, 2011


User reviews of this film

  • kiley said...
    Posted on Jul 22 2011 15:33 Hummingbirdcars.co.uk are the best company for airport transfers.safe and secure
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  • ScrumpyJack said...
    Posted on Jun 10 2011 00:30 Astonishing, Magnetic. Brilliant. The finest film I have ever seen.
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  • Marty Y said...
    Posted on May 14 2011 08:03 My all time top film. Yes it is bleak and gritty but what the hell? so is life...
    Amazing filmmaking, acting, scenarios. All very believable and easy to consider someone going through all that and more. Great sax backing. A very cathartic film.
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  • Daniel said...
    Posted on May 11 2011 09:06 A film where everything comes together - the acting, the writing, the direction (plus Hermann's soundtrack!). Doesn't get better than this
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  • Magmabulle said...
    Posted on Jun 07 2008 23:45 Scorsese's biggest masterpiece, a powerful story showing Robert De Niro at the top of his game.
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  • C.J said...
    Posted on Jan 13 2008 17:01 A marvellous and powerful expose of an unhinged mentality
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