"Notes from the underground"-it's the title of a Dostoyevsky book. Actually it's one of his best. If you've read it you could maybe appreciate more the Scorsese movie.  "God's lonely man"-that's Travis Bickle,the Vietnam veteran who spends his life driving a cab through the seedy streets of New York. He observes without taking any part. He despises the pimps, the prostitutes and the junkies. He welcomes the rain that will sweep the city clean of its filth. He haunts the streets as he begins a mesmerizing descent into his own personal hell. He's drawn to two women in particular: there's Betsey, the unattainable blonde campaign worker for a president wannabe, and there's Iris, a child whore who is in the thrall of a brutal pimp. At a certain point of the movie he sets out to win over these two women and at the same time atone for his own sins in an orgy of violence. His original plan to kill the candidate is foiled by the Secret Service, so he decides to descend into the squalor to redeem himself by rescuing Iris.  Like every kind of underdog Travis takes out his anger on the guy below him rather than the guy above him. He contemplates his arsenal before beginning his rampage. He is wearing faded combat fatigues and has designed a complicated holster contraption that would allow him to draw and fire much faster. He is surveying his handywork in a full-length mirror. "You talking to me" - he says as he spins and draws on a non existent opponent, savouring this moment. It's the picture of a man on the brink of the abyss! A truly wonderful moment of genuine movie magic!  Travis Bickle is a man who is in emotional pain throughout the movie. The pain and torment that Bobby De Niro endures on screen as Travis goes far beyond simply acting. To give that feeling of rejection, the feeling of really being angry, the fear of not being able of making relationships survive, to understand the pain and play it so convincingly he would have had to endure at least some of it. Undisputably one of the best performances in the cinema history!