Taxi Driver

Noah Pines
Robbins
Film Analysis
1/5/15

Taxi Driver

Robert De Niro's character, Travis Bickle, was never 100% sane. He drove taxi around all night, ate at a diner with other drivers (but barely interacts with them), and enjoyed going the theater to watch X-rated movies. The one thing that he truly believed in, was that someone needed to "clean the scum off New York City [streets]."

Travis then discovers Betsy, and it appears that he is going to change. He became more confident and seemed happy for once, but lacking proper social skills, he to Betsy to see a porno and she was horrified. She never forgave him and he snapped at her, telling her that she'll burn in hell. He begins buying weapons, disgusted by all the horrible people on the streets (prostitutes, etc), but then he sees Iris, the 12 year old prostitute, again (who once tried to escape in his cab). Travis seems to change again, as he attempts to convince her to let him help her escape, but she doesn't want to.

In the end, sporting a terrifying mohawk, Travis decides to take matters into his own hands, gets into a bloody gunfight with Iris' pimp, bouncer, and customer... killing all three before attempting to kill himself.

It's rather ironic how Travis always talks about ridding the streets of filth (while he is a cab driver which is not often regarded as a "high quality" job), and after he kills the men, he is no better than any of them! What do you think will happen to Iris?