"You talkin' to me?"

Taxi Driver (1976)

Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel

Directed by Martin Scorcese

Travis Bickle is a taxi driver in a rough area of New York. He's a Vietnam veteran who can't sleep, so he might as well get paid to drive a taxi around.

He tries to connect with people -- he asks out Betsy, a woman working on a senator's presidential campaign, but can't seem to mainstream into society.

As he becomes increasing frustrated with the state of his life, he descends into a growing madness. He desperately turns his focus to Iris, a teenaged prostitute that he thinks needs saving.

There are SO many great performances in this film. De Niro is so believable as the mentally unstable Travis that his every interaction with a human being onscreen put me on edge; I really didn't know what he was going to do.

Jodie Foster played Iris with a maturity beyond her years, which was truly sad to see because it made her believable as a desperate child prostitute. Scary.

Harvey Keitel was sleazily pitch-perfect as Iris' creepy pimp.

I couldn't give this movie five stars, though -- Scorcese did too good a job; I was so disturbed that I couldn't really enjoy it. It's only out of respect for the actor's performances that I was able to give it anything above two stars. The actors and director get a five; the palatability of the film gets a two.

There's no denying, however, that it's a brilliant, if disturbing, work. If you're into that sort of thing, which I don't happen to be.