It's a dark portrait of the lowest classes of the American urban society in which is inserted the central character of the movie, the troubled and desperately lonely Travis Bickle, a twenty-six year old Vietnam war veteran,who seems to be heavily psychologically battle-scarred (his psychological profile approximates those of the fight-zone combatants which are characterized by insomnia, troubles of the behavior, and even schizophrenia)
For Travis, working as a taxi driver "any time, any where" seems to be the therapeutic solution to his troubles but this nocturnal work exposes him (and accordingly the spectator) to all the urban plagues characteristic of big cities. Simultaneously repulsed: he hopes that "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets" and attracted by this decaying environment: he spends most of his free time wandering in the porno district and frequenting triple-X rated movie theater, Travis finds himself obsessed, alienated and hopelessly abandoned by the men (and the women). This ambivalence of behavior towards the degrading world in which he lives attests of his schizophrenia and of a sort of hypocrisy of his personality. For these reasons, being powerless to change his own situation, he transfers his attention, desperately trying to save others, regardless of their wills: he wants to free Betsy (he sees her work relationship with Palantine as an obstacle for her freedom), the senator Palantine campaign worker, from the suggested paternal figure of the latter, by killing him andhe wants to save Iris, the twelve year old.
prostitute,from his pimp, Sport. It is through this Travis' truncated vision that the spectator discovers or rediscovers the sleaziest streets of the low New York. From the very beginning, with the close shot on his eyes cut to his view through the rainy windshield, one adopt his point of view that one keep nearly during the whole movie.
