Many years have passed since nutjob cab driver Travis Bickle (De Niro) first washed the scum off the street, and the intervening years have done little to diminish his power to unnerve and rivet.
Bickle's odyssey, which sees him date a blonde angel (Shepherd) and save a kid hooker (an astonishing Foster), remains filmmaking at its most electric a tight, darkly funny Paul Schrader script, allied with Scorseses directorial fireworks and anchored by a wired De Niro working at the top of his game.
Bickle's yellow box cruising New York (this is the underbelly of the Big Apple that gives Woody Allen nightmares), Scorsese's backseat cameo, Bickle trying on guns, Bernard Herrmans brooding soundtrack, the OTT bloodbath at the finish - everything in this movie gets under your skin and stays with you like fever.
