I’m pretty sure that the backlash has already begun. Joker arrived on a wave of critical praise, even managing to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. But even now there are rumblings that it isn’t very good. Blah blah incels. Blah blah Scorsese rip-off. Blah blah Joaquim’s a ham.

First of all, as regards the incel stuff. Thank fucking Christ this isn’t some pro-incel nonsense. Well, for the most part. For the majority of the movie this is just a sad, sorry tale of a mentally ill man steadily losing the plot. There’s no outrage that women aren’t throwing themselves at him. He’s just losing his mind.

The only reason that I say that it mostly avoids incel-type nonsense is that there’s a scene near the end where the Joker/Arthur Fleck becomes a bit whinny. He goes on a late night TV show with Robert De Niro’s talk show host and complains about how people aren’t nice. He also confesses to some earlier murders. It’s a terribly written scene; easily the worst in the movie. Which is kind of a big deal when this is the Joker’s first big scene.

Everything about it feels wrong. De Niro’s character hardly bats an eyelid when the Joker confesses to murder, the TV show stays on the air for way too long while De Niro pompously lectures a killer and the Joker doesn’t sound like the Joker at all. It’s like it’s still Arthur Fleck talking but in drag. Which I suppose could kind of be the point. But the dialogue is still awful and self-pitying, something which the Joker usually isn't. I kind of wish that the Joker would have come on the TV show and not spoken a word; just sat there for a while and then shot De Niro’s character in the head before laughing hysterically like it’s the funniest joke in the world.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the movie’s best scene is when we first get a glimpse of what’s to become the Joker. Arthur has lost his job as a clown for hire and attracts the attention of some Wall Street-type douchebags while riding home on the Subway. He’s still in his clown gear and they taunt him, beat him and humiliate him until, like Death Wish’s Paul Kersey, he blows two of them away with a concealed weapon. The last guy, like The French Connection, he chases off the train and shoots in the back. Arthur then flees the scene and disappears into a men’s bathroom. Here, wearing full clown make-up, he outstretches his arms and gazes at himself in the mirror, finding liberation in his violent madness. It’s a beautifully poetic scene; a lunatic finally finding himself.

Another great scene is when a couple of ex-colleagues come to visit Arthur in his apartment. They’ve found out that his mother has died. One of his former colleagues is a man who gave him a gun; an action which inadvertently led to Arthur losing his job. The other guy is a little person. They find Arthur in ghostly white face (he’s dyed his hair green and is playing with his face paint). After a brief chat, Arthur brutally and hideously attacks the man who gave him the gun, stabbing him repeatedly and smashing his head into the wall. The little person can only look on in disbelief. Eventually the man asks to leave, not knowing if he’s going to be murdered in turn. The scene is dripping with tension. Arthur then says that he can go. With great relief, the little person goes to exit the apartment. However, there are chains on the door and he can’t reach. He then has to ask Arthur to help him out. You’re never quite sure what’s going to happen and it’s darkly comic to see the dwarf squirm so much in the face of madness.

Perhaps the most chilling scene, though, is when Arthur lets himself into a neighbour’s flat. It isn’t clear yet (although it’s pretty obvious if you’re paying attention) but Arthur has been imagining that he’s in a relationship with a woman named Sophie that he encounters in his apartment building’s elevator. They have a brief exchange and then we see them spending time together. Only they aren’t. It’s all in Arthur’s head. It’s very sad and pathetic but it feels like an incredibly real delusion. The fantasies that he has are exactly the kind of thing that lonely men come up with. After killing the Wall Street guys, and still in full make-up and covered in blood, he imagines knocking on Sophie’s door and making out with her. What woman would do that? And the mother of a small child, no less. As always with these types of things, Arthur casts himself as the hero of his own nightmare.

So when Arthur turns up in Sophie’s flat, after having killed his mother (of course), there’s a palpable sense of dread. The casual way that he sits down and waits for her is rife with menace. And adding tension to the scene is the fact that, when he arrives, Sophie is putting her little daughter to bed.

What I liked so much about the film is that it’s more of a mood piece than anything else. The photography and music are fantastic. Some of the visuals are breathtaking - the Joker running through the tunnel, the lighting as the Joker waits to come through the curtain on the TV show and even Arthur simply trudging through his neighbourhood. This is lightyears ahead of the bland, moribund stuff that Marvel are feeding us. Just watching Arthur get fired and then smash his head into a phone booth window had more pathos and gravity than the whole of Black Panther.

Which isn’t to say that this is a great movie. There are some glaring faults. Robert De Niro doesn’t quite convince as the TV host, Thomas Wayne is merely a Donald Trump-style douchebag and the movie fetishes the Joker character. Once his face is painted, he seems to move in nothing but slow motion and is constantly filmed leaning back, smoking a cigarette. The Joker is meant to be a fascinating character but he isn’t meant to be the epitome of cool. I get that the confidence, the smoking and the dancing is Arthur finally finding himself but there’s so little actual Joker in the movie and so much of it is filmed in slow-mo that it feels that the film loses a little perspective. Heath Ledger’s Joker was always fascinating and endlessly watchable but you didn’t feel that Nolan was identifying with him or trying to turn him into a symbol of cool.

Another fault I had with the film is that the Joker never really feels like the Joker. I always thought that the Joker was fiercely intelligent. Evil yes, but super smart. Arthur Fleck is a bit of a dolt. As he’s presented here, he wouldn’t be capable of planning anything. Perhaps that’s the point though? Todd Phillips has said that he didn’t want to make it certain whether Arthur is the true Joker or not. Perhaps Arthur inspires someone else to take on the mantle.

That being said, there’s a great scene where the Joker is ‘liberated’ from the police by a hoard of anti-capitalist protesters. They’ve picked him as their symbol, their representative. He has no fucking clue what’s going on but finds that he finally has an appreciative audience. Earlier on in the film he bombs horribly at a stand-up club and is then publicly mocked for it on De Niro’s TV show. But now everyone is cheering him. With blood on his face, he smears it over himself to make an even bigger smile. After all the false starts in the movie, is this his birth as the Joker?

I’m not sure how successful this film will be with audiences. When I went to see it, everyone seemed to trudge out in a stupor. But even though it has some serious flaws, I’m glad that a filmmaker and a studio has finally tried to do something different with a comic book movie. The Marvel films have become cinematic NyQuil, regularly putting me in a coma. Here we have a movie with an amazing central performance from Joaquin Phoenix that takes lots of lots of risks. Not everything pays off, and yes the movie is highly reminiscent of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, but give me this over The Avengers any day.

The opening to Goodfellas – the murder of Billy Batts – shows the beginning of the end of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). Up until that point, despite the thieving and the violence, everything is rather light-hearted. There's a sense of solidarity amongst the criminals. But once Batts is murdered, infighting, greed and addiction take over. The life will get you in the end.

The opening scenes are great at establishing the allure of being a gangster. As the movies have always shown, it's a very seductive world. Who wouldn't want to be able to thumb their nose in the face of the law if they could get away with it? Therefore it feels completely normal that the film shows you all the fun aspects of this criminal life and that the camera lingers on all the accoutrements of gangsterism – jewelry, shoes, cars etc. The crooks here are almost like movie stars.

And at the beginning even the violence is intended to seduce you. There's a great bit where Henry's postman is threatened with an oven to make sure he doesn't give any school letters to Henry's parents. The way it's shot and scored make it seem like something of a lark. You're asked to respect the power and audacity of these guys. And the icing on the cake is the final freeze-frame of the terrified postman's face – these guys control life and death; if you don't respect them you're going in the oven.

But freeze-frames occur frequently in the early part of the film. There's a powerful shot where Henry's dad is beating him with a belt and it's stopped right in the middle of the whipping. It makes the beating seem even more violent than it already is and it makes you identify with Henry's rebellion; soon no one will be able to do that to him again. However, the most famous freeze-frame takes place when Henry sets a bunch of cars on fire. The image is held as Henry makes a Christ-like pose with flames behind him – he's finally in the life; welcome to hell.

Another early scene I like is when the young Henry gets pinched. He thinks the guys will be mad at him for getting arrested, but because he keeps his mouth shut he's welcomed from the court like a conquering hero. And the scene even ends with another freeze-frame. It might as well be a family portrait.

The good times extend into Henry's adult life. He steals trucks, makes lots of money and even falls in love. And this leads to another great scene – the long Steadicam shot when Henry takes Karen to the Copacabana. This is her seduction. This is when she's seduced by the life. And another seduction is the scene where Henry pummels one of Karen's neighbours. He's supposed to have touched Karen so Henry rearranges his face with the butt of his gun. But although it's incredibly violent and although the sound effects make you wince, you can see why Karen would be turned on. How many other men would do this for her? How many other men would protect her in such a brutal way? Not many.

However, like I said at the beginning, Billy Batts is when everything begins to go downhill. From that point on the murders become more frequent and collective greed is overtaken by personal greed. But I do have to say that the Batts murder is my favourite scene. The dialogue and the timing between Joe Pesci and Frank Vincent is outstanding and the beating has so much emotion. You kind of get whipped up in it yourself. And the choice of music ('Atlantis' by Donovan) is perfect. It raises the scene to another level.

But Scorsese's choice of music is always spot-on. The other musical highlight has to be his use of the closing music in 'Layla'. It's a beautiful piece, which makes it work well with the grisly murders it shows – the images kind of show an end of an era, which, what with the music, lends the whole sequence a strange kind of romanticism. And it also works well because the emotion of the song and the final piece of music go hand in hand with what Jimmy (De Niro) is feeling at the time – the song and the music is about yearning for someone and then having that love fulfilled, and Jimmy is beside himself with pleasure that Tommy (Pesci) is being made. He thinks his dreams are finally coming true.

Unfortunately, though, that sequence is when the real nightmare kicks in. After this, Henry becomes an addict and screws up so bad that he has to betray his friends. And the sequence that shows the day of his arrest is rather amazing. Again Scorsese proves himself to be a master of using music to emphasise emotion and mood, and it's shot in such a way with zooms and fast edits that you feel as strung out as Henry. It's coke film-making...but in a good way.

And I also like the final scene between Jimmy and Karen. With smiles and promises he tries to conspire to kill her, but she gets scared and manages to get away. It's a good way of showing what's wrong with this life without moralising – in this life you can never truly trust your friends; and who really wants to live like that? Nevermind the morals. These people obviously have none. For no other reason than fear of death, I don't understand why anyone would want to live this way.

But at the end, despite everything, you also get to see that Henry misses life as a gangster. And although it's supremely arrogant of him to say that he gets to live the rest of his life like a schnook, insinuating that us law-abiding folk are something lesser, you sort of know what he means. If only he and his pals weren't so damn greedy they would have had it made. But that's kind of the point, isn't it? There's never honour among thieves. It's a myth. Scorsese brilliantly builds up that myth and then takes a scalpel to it, showing how hollow and disgusting this life is.

The Godfather is undoubtedly the most acclaimed gangster film out there, but I'd take Once Upon a Time in America over it any day. In fact, I'd take Leone's film over any film full stop. It's just a beautiful film. It's a film about friendship, love, greed and time – all the good stuff.

One of the most audacious things in the film is the way the exposition is delivered. Noodles (De Niro) is in an opium den, high as a kite, and he's woken up by a buzzing in his head. But then as he looks at a newspaper with the faces of some dead gangsters on the cover, the buzzing turns into the sound of a telephone. And the telephone rings as we're taken back in time. The first thing we see are dead bodies on a street, one whose face is charred beyond recognition. Then we see a party, where Noodles excuses himself to make a call. But when he picks up the receiver the ringing telephone on the soundtrack doesn't cease. Then we cut to a police station and see another telephone. Only when this one is picked up does the telephone stop sounding. It's a very elegant way of showing Noodles' betraying his friends and communicating that he's in the opium den because his betrayal is ringing in his ears.

Just as elegant are the shifts in time. The film is wrapped around an elderly Noodles returning to New York after receiving a mysterious letter. He thought he'd escaped his mob life. But as he returns to his old home, we have extended flashbacks. And the transitions are beautiful. Indeed, one of them may even very well be my favourite bit in any film.

The moment in question is when the old Noodles returns to Fat Moe's more than thirty years after he left. Noodles looks at some old photos of his friends and then wanders to the back of the establishment. Morricone's gorgeous score swells and Noodles stands on the lid of a toilet. He then pulls a peephole back and edges closer towards the hole. Through the other side we see his sad eyes and when we cut back we see what he's seeing. We see a young girl dancing in the back room of a bar – Noodles' beloved Deborah. And then when we see Noodles again it's the young Noodles. It's an amazing piece of cinema, one that communicates the sense of loss we feel as we grow older and the blind excitement we feel in our youth.

And I do have to say that of all the sections in the film, I love the childhood scenes the most. There's just so much energy and life in these scenes. You have Noodles and his gang of degenerate friends burning down a newsstand, Noodles flashing his nymphomaniac neighbour, Patsy trying to buy a 'favour' from the aforementioned nymphomaniac by buying an expensive cake only to scoff it himself when he's made to wait on the stairs, and the scene where the urchins blackmail a policeman. These kids are little bastards, but somehow Leone infuses their scenes with such a degree of innocence. We love these kids. Therefore it's devastating when one of them, the smallest and perhaps most innocent, is shot down by a rival gangster. And when the child tells Noodles that he slipped just before he dies, it's heartbreaking. Finally the fun and games are over and the consequences of a criminal life are revealed.

One of the consequences is that Noodles goes to prison for avenging his friend's death and for stabbing a policeman. But when he comes out things have changed between him and his best friend Max (James Woods). They just aren't on the same page any more. Noodles would rather talk to Deborah than take an interest in the criminal empire Max has built up in his absence. But despite his lack of interest, Noodles does get involved. Indeed, during a robbery, Noodles is asked to put a cork in a woman who wont shut up. And he does so literally.

But this is a good example of a complexity in Noodles' character. He's an interesting mixture of a romantic and a thug. And an even better example of this is his reaction to Deborah leaving New York to go to Hollywood. This is the woman he loves, and he tries his best to woo her by taking her to a fancy restaurant and hiring it entirely for the two of them. But when she tells him that she's leaving, he's devastated. We see him in the car completely heartbroken. But Deborah makes the mistake of giving him a consolation kiss that leads to a brutal rape. Leone got into a lot of trouble for saying that this was an act of love, but he's right in a way. What Noodles does is completely wrong, but he does it out of a sick, twisted, obsessive love. In that moment he'd rather destroy her than let anyone else have her.

But it says something for Leone and De Niro that I care for this character. He does a lot of ugly things but he's human. And the scenes with the elderly Noodles are dripping with melancholy. "What have you been doing all these years?" "Been going to bed early," replies Noodles. Since New York his life has stopped. He's ceased to be a functioning human being. He's completely stuck in the past. And for some reason I always find it curiously moving when, early on in the film, when fleeing his hometown, Noodles asks for a bus ticket - "one way", he says. In that moment he might as well be putting a bullet in his head - he's ending his life.

However, although Noodles is forever stuck in the past, it's telling, in the scene where he's reunited with Deborah, that she doesn't appear to have aged while he looks decrepit. Are we seeing things through Noodles' eyes? Is this wishful thinking on his part? Whatever the answer, the scene is a marvellous one, one full of sadness and regret. In particular, I love Morricone's use of music and some of the lines. My favourite is something Deborah says: "We're both getting old. All we have left now are our memories." It's these memories that keep Noodles forever locked in the past. He can't escape the memory of seeing Deborah dance, or of her rape, or of his betrayal of his friends. Therefore he's stuck in limbo - maybe to lose those memories, to be put out of his misery, would be his only escape.

And it's quite interesting that the confrontation at the end of the film centres entirely around dialogue. The guns of Leone's westerns have been removed and in its place we have a more subtle duel. What I like the most is the way that Noodles refuses to acknowledge that this Senator Bailey, the person who raised him from the dead and brought him back to New York with his mysterious letter, is actually Max, the friend who he thought had died. His refusal to acknowledge his friend is another example of how stuck in the past he is. As far as he's concerned, his friend is dead and their friendship is, too - this man may as well be a spectre. Yes he knows it's Max, but as far as he's concerned, everything is over. Plus it's a subtle way of screwing his friend. By not acknowledging him by his real name and by ignoring his demands, he's maybe getting revenge for losing most of his life to his false grief - it's the only way that he can wield any power over this man.

And I find it audacious that a film that begins with a mystery - who brought Noodles back from the dead? - ends with another one. Does Senator Bailey/Max kill himself at the end? Does he walk into the trash compactor? And is it even Max at all, as we only see the man from a distance. Maybe Noodles is being fooled for a second time. Maybe this is another grand escape by his old friend. We never know.

And the film's final image is perfect. We see Noodles in the opium den. He smokes, lies on his back and the camera closes in on his face. For a few moments he's pensive, but then he cracks a huge grin. All his friends are dead (or so he thinks) and he's the one who betrayed them, but he's lost in oblivion. Finally, for a brief time, he's free from everything. And of course, this hints that the film could indeed be some sort of opium dream, but that's another matter entirely...

Directed by Sergio Leone
Written by Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli, Franco Arcalli, Franco Ferrini and Sergio Leone
Produced by Arnon Milchan
Original Music by Ennio Morricone
Cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli
Starring Robert DeNiro, James Woods and Elizabeth McGovern.

Running Time: 229 mins

Rated R for strong violence, sexual content, language and some drug use.

As if The Simpsons couldn’t make it any clearer, Robert De Niro’s Max Cady is a cartoon villain. With his outrageous accent, his muscular physique, his frightening intelligence and his ability to get the shit kicked out of him and come back harder and tougher, he’s completely removed from reality. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t fun. I mean, in the aforementioned scene where he gets the crap kicked out of him – with lead pipes and bicycle chains, no less – he gets to quote Silesius while adjusting his cute little hick hat. Awesome.

Then there’s the scene where he holds a smoking flare in his hand. “Granddaddy used to handle snakes in church, Granny drank strychnine. I guess you could say I had a leg up, genetically speaking.” This sort of person only exists in nightmares and movies. He’s nothing like the Max Cady that Robert Mitchum played, a character who was more believable and therefore scarier.

However, De Niro’s Cady does have his moments. The scene where he picks up a drunk woman at a bar and then proceeds to bite a chunk out of cheek is truly shocking. But although that moment still makes me wince, I actually find the way he punches the woman more disturbing. The brutality of it is quite overwhelming.

But the film’s best scene is actually the one where Cady talks to Danielle Bowden (daughter of Sam Bowden, Cady’s lawyer who screwed him over). He pretends to be her drama teacher and the two have a little chat. What makes the scene so gripping is the fact that we’ve already seen the brutality that Cady is capable of (the biting and the punching). Therefore, when you first watch it, you’re on the edge of your seat. And then there’s the whole queasy sexual quality it has. Cady flirts with Danielle (Juliette Lewis’ reaction when De Niro asks to put his arm around her is brilliant – the shyness and the excitement is completely genuine) and has her suck on his thumb. And then when they kiss you feel like Cady has violated the family in the sickest way possible. He’s going to seduce the women of the family before tearing them apart.

The seduction of Sam’s wife Leigh (excellently played by Jessica Lange) is less obvious, but it is there. Right at the beginning, there’s a scene where the married couple make love and afterwards we see Leigh applying her make-up. It’s like she’s not quite fulfilled, that she’s waiting for a real man to turn up. And later on, when Leigh first meets Cady face to face, she seems disappointed by him. It’s like she’s been fantasising about him in private and the reality has failed to live up to expectations.

But although of all of this stuff is great, and ultimately makes it a more rewarding experience than the original film, you do have to take a couple of silly moments. For instance, there’s the bit where we see Cady tied to the bottom of the Bowdens’ 4 x 4. By this point he’s too much like a hick Terminator. And then there’s the bit where Cady disguises himself as the Mexican housekeeper so that he can kill Sam’s private detective. It just seems out of place in a film that, most of the time, tries to stay on the right side of reality. However, this killing is made worthwhile by the moment when the Bowden family slip on the blood surrounding the body. It’s an absurd moment of clumsiness that would be left out by 99% of directors but which makes the events seem more believable somehow.

But I do love the moral ambiguity that’s present in the film. Yes Cady is a monster, but he also seems to be a monster of Sam’s making. He suppressed evidence that might have got Cady acquitted. Therefore, as reprehensible a person as Cady is, you feel that he has a right to be angry with Sam. No matter how disgusting a person is, they’re entitled to a fair defence. It’s not up to a lawyer to make moral judgements (I didn’t even know they had morals). So, to some extent, Sam has inflicted this misery upon himself.

And it’s telling that, in the end, Sam doesn’t even get the satisfaction of killing Cady. Just as he’s about to slam a rock into his face, Cady drifts off into the river and drowns. But in a way this also saves Sam. Killing Cady wouldn’t cleanse him or purify his soul. It would be another nail in the coffin.

But Cady’s death is superbly filmed by Scorsese. Cady speaks in tongues and then begins singing as he disappears into the river. Even though he’s dying, Cady behaves like he’s victorious. Throughout the film his belief that he’s on the side of the righteous is unwavering. And the way that he disappears into the water is actually quite creepy – he’s like an animal vanishing into the wilderness; his death is so inhuman that you fear he’ll return at any moment.

Another moment I like: the way that Cady walks straight into the camera when he’s released from prison. He’s like a missile locked on his prey. And then there’s the scene where Cady sits on the Bowdens’ wall as hundreds of fireworks explode in the background. Scorsese’s visual sense adds immeasurably to the film. Really, I’m not sure how anyone can claim the original is better.

It’s always a bit worrying when someone tells you that they deeply identify with Travis Bickle. What, so you enjoy taking women to porno films, have a gun fetish and enjoy befriending 12-year-old prostitutes? If you say so, mate.

But seriously, although it’s a bit disturbing when people tell you they agree wholeheartedly with Travis Bickle’s outlook on life (“someday a real rain will come”), I’m sure most people can relate to him to a certain extent. The loneliness is certainly something that most people have felt at some time. And really, even though you’re surrounded by millions of people, large cities can be the loneliest places on the planet. Everywhere you go you see people making connections while you can only peer at them from the outside.

This is certainly the case for Travis. He’s a perpetual outsider. He just doesn’t fit in anywhere. Just take the scenes with his fellow cabbies. Here are his work colleagues, people who go through the same shit as him, and yet he has nothing to say to them. They can’t understand him and vice versa. But despite this he does try and reach out. He tries to tell one of his colleagues the crazy thoughts that are going through his head. But just as you feel he’s going to reveal himself, he has to swallow some of the stupidest advice that’s ever been put forward. A chance to make a connection has been lost. And yet, even though this cabbie spouts random nonsense, one thing he says has a ring of truth. He tells Travis he should get laid.

And that’s what Travis really needs. He desperately needs a shag. He needs a proper release. But while Travis does try and meet someone, he goes about it in the wrong way. In one excruciating scene he tries to pick up a woman at a porno theatre. Yeah, that’s going to work. A woman who’s working in a porno theatre is really going to want to date one of the wankers she has to serve.

And then of course there’s the scene where he takes Betsy to see a movie. Fair play to Travis, though, he does ask this attractive woman out on a date and does a decent enough job of holding a conversation with her (although he’s rather intense and insults one of her work colleagues), but just when things may be going right, when he may have a chance to ease his crippling loneliness, he decides to take her to see something from his favourite genre – porn. Even though Travis is desperately trying to reach out to outside world he’s continually reinforcing his loneliness. And when Betsy’s response to this charming outing is overwhelmingly negative, and when she no longer wants to speak to him, he blames the world for his sorry situation. He’s completely unable to look within himself. The problem, apparently, is with everyone else, not him.

So in light of this failed attempt to get laid, Travis reverts to a form of masturbation. I mean, all the guns he buys and all the macho posturing before the mirror is pure onanism. He’s striking out against his impotence and the world that mocks him for it. And all the time when he sees sex or couples in love on TV he points his gun at them. He wants to destroy these people who have the audacity to pursue some sort of happiness.

And when you think about it, Travis’ whole idiotic attempt to kill Senator Palantine is the action of a jilted lover. Here’s a man that Betsy adores so therefore Travis is going to blow his brains out. But of course Travis can’t even do this. Again he’s impotent.

So with this act of vengeance a failure, the next best thing for Travis is to ‘rescue’ Iris, the 12-year-old prostitute played by Jodie Foster. I guess it’s a strange kind of delusion that affects the lonely man, but they often seem to think that they’re on some sort of righteous mission; that their pain and suffering is there to serve a greater good and that they’ll be worshipped when they’re finally understood.

And so finally Travis gets to strike out against this diseased society. He finally gets a chance to get his gun off. And he does it in the most vile, sickening way – blowing fingers off and blowing people’s brains out. This is the girl’s knight in shining armour. This is her hero – a man sporting a Mohawk and dripping with blood.

And so this begs the question as to whether the epilogue is some sort of pre-death fantasy on the part of Travis or whether it’s a satirical swipe at the way we sometimes make heroes out of monsters. I mean, we get to hear a letter from Iris’ parents where Travis is lauded as a hero. We get to see Travis with his work colleagues – now he’s one of the gang. And then finally we get to see Betsy. You get the feeling that maybe she wants to apologise to Travis and give their fledgling relationship another try. But instead Travis drives off. Surely this is precisely what Travis would want to happen. He’d want to become the righteous hero, he’d want to gain acceptance from those around him and he’d want a chance to stick it to that filthy whore who didn’t understand him. Surely in reality his bloodbath would be quickly forgotten. And surely, if he survived, he’d end up in jail.

But that ambiguity is one of the many things that makes Taxi Driver such an outstanding film. You’re presented with one of the most unflinching depictions of loneliness and how you respond to it is up to you. Hero or villain, saint or sinner – the choice is yours.