Taxi Driver (1976)

Martin Scorsese's masterpiece resonates powerfully even today, thirty years after its release, with its story of a war veteran taxi driver, a kind of grown-up Holden Caulfield, who over the course of on-the-job transactional exchanges with psychos, pimps, politicians and prostitutes grows increasingly alienated from and disdainful of NYC - it is hard to argue with De Niro's taxi driver, Travis Bickle's perception that this 1970s NYC is perverted, immoral, sick but it is the taxi driver who psychotically reacts to it.

★★★★★

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Concussion (2015)

The story of Bennett Omalu's important work establishing the links between American football and brain injury works best as a human drama between people who prefer to 'leave things alone' versus those like Omalu who can't, and the movie offers food for thought about the ability to causally link specific behaviours to brain trauma, but the not always convincing framing of the movie as a corporate thriller and some Hollywood flourishes towards the end are a disservice to this fascinating drama.

★★★☆☆

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Drive (2011)

A likeable stunt driver moonlights as a getaway driver for thieves and even though you want to believe him to be a good and caring man, his involvement with some really very nasty people, er, drives him to some dark places in this rivetting thriller full of 80s stylings and low affect characters.  

★★★★☆

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