19 Ultimate Final Shoot-Outs Of Cinema History
5. Taxi Driver (1976)
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro collaborated on this dark and intimate journey into a troubled Vietnam veterans physique. Exuberantly directed and frighteningly realistic as it barrels towards a devastating third act that's equally gruesome, disturbing and surreal.
De Niro’s main character Travis Bickle begins to lose his grip on reality and focus all of his frustration and anger on wiping out the management of a scuzzy brothel house and rescue Jodie Foster’s underaged hooker.
De Niro heads in their with a packed arsenal but the consequences are full of human error and the results not pretty, with messy gunplay and severe bloodletting abound.
Scorsese and his intricate relationship with editor Thelma Schoonmaker are on impressive display as they use jarring cuts, slow-motion and distorted sound to imply the mania its main character is going through.
Interestingly, the original cut was going to land an X rating so the colour palette had to be muted with a strange orange glow to dull the spraying red. It ends up making the sequence even more distinct and unreal, even if it's coupled with the sobering realistic violence.