Taxi Driver is a 1976 film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The movie is set in early post–Vietnam Era New York City and stars Robert De Niro and features a young Jodie Foster,
Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle and Cybill Shepherd. The film is a widely acclaimed success, and was put on AFI’s list 100 Years… 100 Movies.
Plot: The story of a war veteran, who is trapped in his soulless existence, is as contemporary as it is primitive. The claustrophobic point-of-view of the insomniac taxi driver, who literally drives through the filth and decadence of society, takes us directly into the mind of this severely alienated person and his unbridled rage, who feels it is his sole responsibility to cleanse New York which is almost as important a character in this movie as the protagonist, and in that parlance, the world, of its garbage and scum hypocrisy, lies, double standards et al. Robert de Nero, as the cabbie cum violent social vigilante cum anarchist, delivers a characteristic bravura performance by bringing to life Tavis Bickle one of the most complex characters in celluloid history, while Scorsese shows with his silent scream bursting though seams that there are directorial dynamism and masterworks that only a genius like him can accomplish with such facile ease, in this defining movie of American and world cinema history.
Cast
* Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle
* Cybill Shepherd as Betsy
* Jodie Foster as “Easy” (Iris Steensma)
* Peter Boyle as “Wizard”
* Harvey Keitel as “Sport” (Matthew Higgins)
* Leonard Harris as Senator Charles Palantine
* Albert Brooks as Tom
* Martin Scorsese as passenger in Travis’s taxi
* Victor Argo as grocery store owner
* Nat Grant as stickup man
* Steven Prince as illegal gun salesman “Easy Andy”
