>I've rented Fritz
>Lang's M...I'll save the late pass-giving privileges for King
>Friday),

I don't think I've ever given anyone a "late pass" before. At least not that I can remember.

>but I just saw Taxi Driver today.
>
>While completely engrossing and fascinating, I find myself
>unable to immediately voice a surefire opinion on the movie as
>a whole.

I see.

>It goes without saying that the acting, the music,
>and the camera work was really really terrific,

This part is true. . . more or less.

>But something about the story
>left me hanging at the end, maybe because I feel like while
>the ending makes SENSE, it went one scene too long.

The ending is definitely ambiguous.

>
>But I don't know...you ever watch a movie and feel like you
>need to watch it again in order to really get all of it into
>your system?

Yes.

>That's how I feel right now about Taxi Driver.

I've seen Taxi Driver several times myself trying to sort out my problems with it. I've given it a lot of chances. I've seen it more times than I've seen most movies I actually like.

>Talk to me, people. What do y'all think? Genius film? Flawed
>film? A bit of both? Overhyped garbage?

I don't like Taxi Driver. But I do think its subject. . . the story of a disturbed war veteran turned right wing vigilante assassin is a worthy one. . . it's a type we've seen spring up here and there in the real world in the past several decades.

But I'm not sure how much the film really has to say on the subject. I don't find it a particularly enlightening portrait of this character.

I also think the movie is a bit too fond of the character. Sometimes I even get the feeling he's speaking *for* the filmmakers. . . or at least for writer Paul Schrader. Perhaps not for Scorsese.

I've always had a problem with the part of the movie where Travis takes Cybil Shepard's character to the porn theater. I find it hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that Travis would have been so stupid as to take her there in the first place. Especially at that point in the story.

I also find it hard to believe that Cybil Shepard's character would have walked into the theater with him at all. It clearly wasn't playing a musical that night. And she definitely wasn't into porn.

The movie has lots of problems in my view.

Other films have treated characters who snap suddenly and kill people with greater understanding than this one. For example, there was "Why Does Herr R. Run Amok" directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder back in the early 70s. Or more recently there was "The Assassination Of Richard Nixon" which starred Sean Penn and was based on the true story of a man who plotted to kill Richard Nixon.