Taxi Driver - Summary

Taxi driver (by Martin Scorsese, 1976)

_______    Travis Bickle (De Niro), a young man from Middle West is a veteran of the Vietnam war. His experience at war made him unbalanced and is now a marginal, outside of society. He's insomniac so he decides to take a job as a taxi driver at night in New York.

_______   Bickle is horrified by moral decadence he sees around him and when Iris (Jodie Foster), a very young prostitute, up one night in his cab, he becomes obsessed with the idea of saving her, despite the lack of interest of the girl.

_______   Bickle is also obsessed with Betsy, an assistant of New York's senator. After meeting, she accepts an appointment but he takes her to see a pornographic movie. After a few moments, she lefts the cinema, disgusted.

_______   Bickle looks for a culprit after his failure with Betsy, and he decides to assassinate the senator. He fails again, and attacks Iris' pimp : he kills him but he's seriously injured. Finally people will see him as a hero, for killing the pimp.

Here, you can see the famous scene in which De Niro is talking to his reflection in the mirror :