“You Talkin’ to me?”

The film, Taxi Driver paints an unforgettable New York City in which a horrible man, is portrayed as the protagonist of the story.

First, Robert De Niro’s role as Travis Bickle, the main character, is amazing. De Niro’s mannerisms and improvisation are one of a kind. 

This film follows a lonely man who becomes a Taxi driver in New York City to earn whatever money he possibly can. 

He finds interest in a woman who works at a campaign office. He asks her out, but she seems to look down on him and stands him up.

Bickle’s rejection serves as the point in which Bickle chooses to change his mentality from a lonely man to a stone-cold criminal. A man people would fear and respect. 

The scenes in which he trains in front of his mirror, holding several firearms, attempting to be intimidating with silence in the background are daunting.

Bickle’s new love interest becomes this 14-year-old prostitute. He wishes to protect her from the harm of the men controlling her. 

It is debated whether this relationship between Bickle and her was more familial or an actual love interest. Either way, he commits himself as a martyr to save this girl from the men taking advantage of her. 

This movie ends with Travis Bickle murdering all of the men controlling the young girl, but he is shot in the process. While the NYPD file in to assess the situation they find Bickle on the ground and in his famous final scene he raises his bloodied hand to his head and places it on his temple where he mimics shooting himself…

The scene makes you uncomfortable, but a film that evokes emotion is worth seeing after all that is its purpose. Emotion is quintessential to human life, so to watch these uncomfortable events brought to light on-screen is an experience. 

In Bickle’s final scene he dies and the camera slowly zooms out from the top, for the audience not to glorify him, but rather look down on him, for his actions were that of a criminal, so his fate will be the same.

A man who committed a litany of crimes, thinking that it would serve some higher purpose, that was never realized by anybody but themselves. 

This film also became very notable when a man by the name of John Hinckley Jr. attempted to shoot President Ronald Reagan to impress the actress who played the young girl, Jodi Foster. 

This man saw himself as Travis Bickle, which speaks to how realistic this film was. If you are looking for a film that forces you into uncomfortability, look no further than Taxi Driver!