So, I get to this stage in my life where I think, yeah, it's time for me to see "Taxi Driver" because everyone's gotta see DeNiro doing his "You talking to me" schtick and generally losing his mind on the streets of New York, which having lived there, I can confirm it is an easy thing to do.

I wasn't prepared for the pacing of it, I think - it was so much slower than movies are made for the MTV-cut generation today. Once I fell into the pattern of it thogh, I could relax and watch poor Travis melt down. But you're never really sure why - is it PTSD from the war? Is it something else? Has he always had these types of problems? It's never gone into, and I suppose it doesn't have to be; just for me, it felt like a piece of the backstory was missing.

Also - most gratuitous shots of a director in his own movie - ever. And I LIKE Scorcese. Did he just have a low budget? Like you can't find extras willing to work for FREE in NYC?? C'mon! Frustrated actor, Marty, admit it!

I also found hilarious that Travis' social skills are so low that he doesn't realize that taking a date to a porno is not considered suave. Especially on their - I think it was  - second date. Then Albert Brooks (guffaw) plays her gallant protector from ROBERT FRIKIN DeNIRO. Yeah, there's believability. I'm buying a bagel and watching that. (I can't eat popcorn - too many crowns.)

So DeNiro goes home and takes these pills; we're never told if they're aspirin or what, but then he says he has to cut out everything because he's been sitting too much and he's gotten too soft and presumably is going to shoot the soon-to-be-nominee because of the shine-on by Cybill Shepherd. Oooo-kay. He's so skinny in this movie I want to tell him to eat an emergency cheeseburger. But he starts working out like a mad-man (did you like my foreshadowing, there?), purchases an obscene amount of guns that makes you chortle and close your throat in fear at the same time because it IS so obscene and nothing good can come of it.

Travis then develops this obsessive relationship with this teenaged hooker, Easy/Iris (Jodie Foster), and he feels compelled to get her out of this life of sin in this city if dirt and filth. The poor crazy schmuck probably sees himself as some kind of knight in shining armor when in truth, he's the same sort of crazed filth that is fillng the streets. After an abortive attempt at killing the now nominee, Travis - now sporting a snazzy new Mowhawk which just makes him all the more inconspicuous - heads on over to Iris to save her from her life of ill-fated degeneration.

Boom. Bang. Boom. Bang. Bang. Bang. Scream. Bang. Two shots to the temple. And he's a hero. Heh?

Okay. Perhaps it's because I was growing up in NYC when this was taking place and my grandfather was a cop and he would've locked this SOB up as a psychopath and not given him the keys to the city that makes this a little too unbelieveable for me. Scorcese is big on NYC history - hey, tell him to ask the DA's Murder Squad - they would not have treated this fellow like a hero, especially with that last little action he does.

Upon further recollection, I suppose we all need antiheroes in the midst of the dirt and the filth and the grime; maybe that's why we all made a hero out of subway shooter Bernard Goetz who just couldn't take it anymore. We need to believe there are those who can see something shiny beneath that grime, something worth saving. Maybe that's the beauty of Travis - that he could see with different eyes.

And if I look at the movie with that point of view, I can say - I enjoyed it. No more. No less. I saw something shiny.

Scale of 1 - 10, we get a five - WOAH.  Knock 'em dead, Travis. And have a hamburger, on me.