Taxi Driver

⭐ 9.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

If you saw the recent Joker movie, it is just the DC version of this movie. A mentally ill taxi driver slowly spirals into violence and anarchy, having complete distrust and disrespect for society at large.

In this case the driver is played by the Robert De Niro, and he is hard to look away from. He starts out kind of quirky, but has a strange level of confidence, then becomes more and more sociopathic until he carries out some vigilante justice that he feels is justified. It's quite the ride, and we meet some great characters along the way, but in general it kind of has the dreadful build of a horror movie. When things finally break it is not in a way I had seen before. We don't get a flashy action scene, but a stark and static view of the violence that makes you feel complicit in the act. I'm always amazing at how lower budget no frills scenes like this stick with you way longer than the frenetic big budget blockbuster action scenes do.

Joker is 100% an homage to this movie, so if you have seen that you might not feel like you need to see this. But when you take off the comic book sheen this feels a bit more true to life, and the city feels more recognizable. This movie also received the same criticism as Joker, in that it forces you to reckon with the impulses of people like this, and potentially empathize and becomes a school shooter. But if you leave either of these movies thinking that they glamorize the impulses of these mentally deranged people, then I would question your judgement.

Overall a hard to watch but unforgettable movie.