Taxi Driver is a 1976 American drama directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film stars Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, a lonely, isolated, and psychotic taxi driver and Jodie Foster as the teenage prostitute he attempts to save.

Plot:

Travis Bickle (De Niro), a Marine who fought in the Vietnam War, is an alienated and mentally unstable young man of 26 from the Midwest. He suffers from chronic insomnia and takes a job as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City. Travis spends his days watching pornography in seedy porn theaters and driving around aimlessly through the shadiest neighborhoods of Manhattan.

He becomes obsessed with Betsy (Shepherd), an aide for New York Senator Charles Palantine, who is running for the presidential nomination and is promising dramatic social change. She is initially intrigued by Travis and agrees to a date with him after he flirts with her and sympathizes with her own apparent loneliness. On the date, however, Travis takes her to a pornographic film, and she leaves him, disturbed. This is a crucial moment in the narrative as Travis feels rejected and depressed, and it triggers in him an obsession with violent self-assertion.

Travis is horrified by what he considers the moral decay around him. Iris (Foster), a 12 year-old child prostitute, gets in his cab one night to escape her pimp. Later he arranges a date with her but refuses when she offers him sex; the next day, they go have breakfast and Travis becomes obsessed with saving her, despite her lack of interest, explaining that she was "stoned" when she tried to escape, and that her pimp Matthew (Harvey Keitel), whom she calls "Sport", appears to be a kind and caring person. Travis then tries to convince her to return home to her parents and go back to school, but fails. Of Sport, Travis says, "Someone has to do something to him ... he is the worst sort of ... sucking scum."


"You talkin' to me?" Alone in his apartment, Travis postures and practices his moves in front of the mirror.Travis then plans to assassinate Senator Palantine at a public rally, though his reasons for doing so remain murky. Perhaps it is because of his new-found self worth, and he explains in his journal that narrates throughout the movie that he has finally found his purpose. He is spotted by Secret Service men and flees. Travis then desperately drives to Alphabet City and in an extremely violent finale shoots Iris's pimp Sport (Keitel), before storming into the brothel and killing the bouncer, the wounded Sport (who has followed Bickle), and Iris's customer.

A brief epilogue of sorts ends the film and shows Travis recuperating from the incident. He receives a letter from Iris's parents who thank him for saving their daughter, and the media hails him as a hero for saving her. Travis returns to his job, where one of his fares is Betsy. She comments about his saving of Iris and Travis's own media fame, yet Travis denies being any sort of hero. Just before the credits start rolling, Travis sees something in his rear view window and quickly looks in its direction, though the viewer never gets to see what Travis does.