Taxi Driver

Release date 8th February 1976
Country : USA
Running time : 113 mins
Genre : Drama / Thriller
Starring Robert DeNiro
Screenplay by Paul Schrader
Directed by Martin Scorsese

New York Taxi driver Travis Bickle is a disturbed loner who is depressed and obsessed by the ugly corruption of life around him. Eventually this results in him exploding into an orgy of violence against the "scum of the streets" he hates so intensely.

Undeniably powerful and well-made study of an urban psychopath but very depressing and disturbing. There is certainly some truth in its view of inner city degradation and the fact that individuals like this do exist. It is a story that needed to be told but I'm concerned by the ending that seems to implicitly support taking the law into your own hands. Cinematically it is pretty much flawless with an incredible performance from DeNiro.  

This was the last work of one of the great composers of film music : Bernard Herrmann.

...a luridly overwritten melodrama which takes New York as a sort of Allegory of Our Times. The film has taken rich rewards at the box office in America (thanks partly to the bloodthirsty finale), but to my mind it is Scorsese's worst film to date... Nigel Andrews, Financial Times, 20th August 1976

DVD available from Columbia-Tristar :