at best it's a comic-branded, shitty copy of better films.

at worst it is literally dangerous. the template for this villain is all too real: marginalized single white male who blames bullies (his low-level colleagues at the clown job, as well as college-educated subway yuppies who have opportunities he envies) and lack of a father figure (Wayne and Murray are written as complete dicks) for his crimes.

the fact that so many black and brown characters were cast to personally aggrieve him made me queasy -- him playing with a black kid on a bus and stalking a black woman before both rebuff him, equaling some kind of failed race relations that excuse his later behavior (one black social worker lets him down, so he kills the next one). and the shot of all the news stations giving him continuous coverage at the end is haunting.

it's valid to bring those issues into a movie, but Todd Phillips is too dumb or racist of a director to have them make any valid sense. so there is no punchline.

I like Taxi Driver BTW.