Taxi Driver

Well, I wasn't much of a Scorsese fan; but after watching this movie all I can say is 'genius'!
The whole movie is intriguing but the last ten minutes are the best ten minutes of any movie I have ever seen [the best 10 minutes of Shawshank Redemption come a little before the last 10 minutes of the movie]!

It starts of describing a lonely, insomniac man (Travis Bickle) who takes up a job as a Taxi Driver. The entire 1st thirty minutes are dedicated to describing the setting of the man's life, his growing frustration with the 'scum of the city'. Since he does most of his work as a night time cabbie; he sees pretty much the worst of the city.
All along the movie an interesting plot is developed, about a Presidential Election.

Travis (De Niro) then gets attracted to a woman named Betsy working for the Election Campaign for a man named Palantine. Travis' inexperience with women leads him to inviting her for a movie, which actually was a Swedish Sex Ed film; Betsy obviously gets disgusted and leaves him.

One night a stoned girl (Iris) gets into his cab only to be dragged out by a pimp. Travis then chances upon seeing the same girl a couple of times more. he finally decides he wants to save her from the lowly life she has been leading at the tender age of 12.

Meanwhile Travis repeatedly tries to contact Betsy, going as far as forcibly entering her office; only to be removed from there.
Travis' frustration then increases day by day until finally he buys a gun. He decides to kill the Presidential hopeful for whom Betsy works. The following scene with Travis and a Secret Agent are pretty well shown, at all times one expects Travis to take out his gun and go after Palantine; but he doesn't.

Travis also gets obsessed with saving Iris (Jodie Foster) and asks her repeatedly to go back to her home and lead a better life. The naive Iris doen't follow his advice.

The next day we suddenly see Travis in a Mohawk hair cut as he enters a rally of Palantine. After the speech Travis gets close to Palantine and is about to draw his gun to shoot, when Secret Agents see him and Travis starts running. He escapes and reaches his home.

The last 10 minutes -

Travis drives his taxi to Iris's brothel area, where he stops and walks over to the pimp. After talking with him for a brief period, he pulls out his gun and shoots him once. He then walks over to Iris' building and climbs the steps. Near Iris' room he is stopped by another goon, he shoots him, but misses his head. The goon gets injured and tries to stop Travis who starts making his way to Iris' room. Suddenly the injured pimp who Travis had short earlier is seen wielding a gun and his shot hits Travis in the neck. Travis then kills the pimp and the goon. As he reaches the door of Iris's room; a man walks out from Iris' room and shoots Travis in the shoulder. Travis kills that man and finally collapses on a sofa next to a scared and weeping Iris. Travis then puts the gun to his own neck and pulls the trigger, many times. But there are no bullets left.

Travis is seen breathing heavily, blood soaked and dying. The police then enter the room, after some time Travis closes his eyes.

We are then shown news paper clippings which say - Taxi Driver Hero Saves Girl From Prostitution!
A voice over reads out a letter by Iris' parents which thank him for saving their daughter; according to the letter Travis was in a coma when they came to visit him and thank him.

They show Travis a while later talking to his fellow cabbies when a woman enters his cab. She talks to him about his heroics and he says that the newspapers made a big deal out of it. The woman in the cab is Betsy. Her actions suggest that due to the events that happened, she wants to resume seeing him. Travis drops her to her house and doesn't charge her.

The movie ends.


The ending of the movie is filled with irony, but a fitting end to an awesome movie. Robert De Niro acts brilliantly in a very challenging role. I saw this movie from 3 am to 5 am in the morning; and even then it seemed awesome. Totally worth it's high rating. Watch it somehow!