Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.
– Travis Bickle
In 1975, Travis Bickle is a lonely, depressed 26-year-old living in isolation in New York City. Travis takes a job as a night shift taxi driver to cope with his chronic insomnia, driving passengers around the city’s boroughs. He frequents porn theatres and keeps a diary in which he consciously attempts to include aphorisms, such as “You’re only as healthy as you feel.”
Travis becomes infatuated with Betsy, a campaign volunteer for Senator and presidential candidate Charles Palantine. After watching her interact with fellow worker Tom through her window, Travis enters to volunteer as a pretext to talk to her, then takes her out for coffee. On a later date, he naively takes her to see a pornographic film, which offends her, and she goes home alone. His numerous attempts at reconciliation by sending flowers and apologizing over the phone are rebuffed, causing him to become embittered and convinced that she is exactly like the “cold” people he detests in the city. He finally confronts her at the campaign office, berating her before being kicked out by Tom.
Travis is disgusted by the sleaze, dysfunction, and prostitution that he witnesses throughout the city, and struggles to find meaning for his existence. His worldview is furthered when an adolescent prostitute and runaway, Iris, who uses the professional name “Easy,” enters his taxi, attempting to escape her pimp, Sport. Sport drags Iris from the taxi and throws Travis a crumpled $20 bill, which continually reminds Travis of her and the corruption that surrounds him. A similarly influential event occurs when an unhinged passenger gloats to Travis of his intentions to kill his adulterous wife and her black lover. Travis confides in fellow taxi driver Wizard about his thoughts, which are beginning to turn violent; however, Wizard assures him that he will be fine, leaving Travis to his own destructive path.
In attempting to find an outlet for his frustrations, Travis begins a program of intense physical training. A fellow taxi driver refers him to an illegal gun dealer, “Easy” Andy, from whom Travis buys four handguns. At home, Travis practices drawing his weapons and modifies one to allow him to hide and quickly deploy it from his sleeve. He also begins attending Palantine’s rallies to reconnoitre their security. One night, Travis enters a convenience store moments before an attempted armed robbery and fatally shoots the robber. To help him evade arrest, the store owner takes responsibility for the deed, claiming one of Travis’s guns as his own.
Travis seeks out Iris, through Sport, and twice tries to convince her to stop prostituting herself, an effort which partially convinces her. After breakfast with Iris, Travis mails her a letter containing money, imploring her to return home. Travis cuts his hair into a mohawk and attends a public rally where he intends to assassinate Palantine. Travis almost pulls out one of his guns, but Secret Service agents notice him putting his hand inside his coat. He almost gets caught, but successfully escapes the scene.
That evening, Travis drives to Sport’s brothel in the East Village. Travis shoots Sport in the stomach, causing a shootout to start. He shoots a gangster in the hand, but Sport gets up and shoots him in the neck before Travis guns him down again. Then Iris’ customer comes through the door from her room and shoots him in the arm and Travis kills him with the sleeve concealed gun. He is attacked by the gangster again who he stabs through the hand and finally shoots dead before the crying Iris. As the police arrive, Travis attempts suicide by shooting himself in the head but finds he has run out of ammo and he passes out from blood loss.
Travis is not prosecuted, but instead, he is hailed as a local hero in the press. He receives a letter from Iris’ father, thanking him for saving her and revealing that she has returned home to Pittsburgh, where she is going to school. After weeks of recovery and returning to work, Travis encounters Betsy as a fare. Travis drives her home, then refuses to let her pay the fare, driving away with a smile. As Travis drives off, he becomes suddenly agitated after noticing something in his rear-view mirror and the end credits roll.
Stand by aaand ACTION! 