5. TAXI DRIVER (1976)
Unfortunately, Bobby De Niro is beset with a mild case of what we may now call "Joe Pesci Syndrome." It's a horrible affliction in which the subject plays a mobster in one or two movies to great success, and then feels compelled to play the same cliched gangster in all subsequent roles (regardless of whether the character is actually a gangster or not). What that means is that many current cinema-goers have no idea that Robert De Niro is capable of great dramatic range. To remedy that problem, we recommend a healthy dose of Taxi Driver.
Don't get us wrong, Bobby's still one mean hombre in this flick. He portrays (no points for guessing) a taxi driver, trying to overcome his loneliness. He becomes infatuated with a woman who is working on a political campaign. This little love interest does very bad things to his brain, and we watch the horrific metamorphosis of De Niro's Travis Bickle into a self-styled Secret Service man and, ultimately, Swiss cheese. Bickle is one of the most whacked-out characters you'll ever see: he takes his date to a porn flick, he tries to become friends with a child prostitute (a 12-year-old Jodie Foster), he has a Mohawk, . . . you know, a loser. In fact, this film is a lyrical homage to loneliness as a human sickness. It's dark, grim, and ugly - and we love it.
Perhaps the real, if somewhat superficial, legacy of this film is the immortal question, "You talkin' to me?" Bickle aggressively interrogates himself in the mirror - in what is reputed to be an improvised scene - to psych himself up for a bloodbath unparalleled in the very wet Scorsese film oeuvre. We think you'll find this film dark, depressing, and brilliant.
Notes:
- Nominated for 4 Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Actor, and Supporting Actress for Foster)
- Neil Diamond was first considered for the lead
- Placed #47 on the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Movies" List
