14. Travis Bickle - Taxi Driver (1974)
Travis Bickle is a depressed insomniac ex-soldier who fought in Vietnam. He takes a job as a taxi driver on the late shift and becomes dismayed at the state of the streets - urban decay, pimps and their hookers. Bickle fantasises about killing them. He meanwhile falls in love with a political activist Betsy and after mildly stalking her for a bit, introduces himself to her. He takes her to a night in a Porno movie house which is a bad idea for a first date. Betsy is disgusted and storms off. After this, Travis retreats into his paranoid fantasy life, accruing guns and threatening people in the mirror. He also exercises vigorously. I think he really has ideas of vigilantism, Bickle becomes obsessed with 12 year old Iris - a child prostitute. He does not want to have sex with her, he wants to protect her. So he tries to kill Sport - her pimp. This involves a lot of shootings and killings but ironically Bickle emerges as a hero for rescuing Iris. Travis gets the hero recognition that he never got as a soldier in Vietnam. I wonder how much being a Vietnam vet influenced Bickle in becoming a psycho. With depression and insomnia - they may be signs of PTSD (post traumatic stress syndrome) from Vietnam. The fact that he is disgusted with the pimps, hookers and johns and other derelict people .This combines with his instability to turn him into a one man psycho vigilante force. And he gets away with it! A case of psycho-ness being a force for good.