(Tie at 31; the other is Godfather 2, which I’ve already sort of seen and won’t rewatch.)

So I was pretty much dreading this one, expecting it to be one of the least pleasant movies on my list. I wasn’t wrong.

Basically, the movie is a two-hour portrait of a misogynistic killer, the kind of guy who shoots up a college or bus stop and blames it on some girl who wouldn’t go out with him. (Apparently this movie even inspired the dude who tried to kill Ronald Reagan, which moves it to a deeply unpleasant meta-level.)

Scorsese is obviously a great director, and so the movie is convincing and compelling in its awfulness[1], but there’s a level at which you have to wonder why you’d turn your directorial gifts to this kind of subject — what would make you say, “yes, this is what I want to immerse myself in, this is the subject I want to spend years depicting and this is the thing I want to put into the world”?

Although an Ebert review says: ‘It is a widely known item of cinematic lore that Paul Schrader’s screenplay for “Taxi Driver” was inspired by “The Searchers,” John Ford’s 1956 film.’ And now I remember that Scorsese is a big defender of that awful movie. So, I don’t know, I guess awful things are just his jam. Everyone needs a hobby, and as far as we know he hasn’t killed anyone? (Although apparently he’s a defender of Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, so… yeah, probably he’s a horrible person, and the movies are a reflection of that.)

Anyway. Deeply unpleasant. Not recommended. And it’s super weird how young Robert De Niro switches between looking like himself and Tobey Maguire depending on his facial expression.

  1. Exception: The final shootout, which was so hilariously cheeseball stagey that I actually literally laughed out loud. Although on reflection, “modern movies are way better at depictions of horrifying ultra-violence” may not say anything good about anything. ↩︎