A Taxi Driver: reviews

What the critics say average 5.3 from 6 outlets

• 7.0 CinemaníaCarlos Marañón The look on that part of the population that looked away is the counterpart to the kind face of a proposition based on a real story where action also takes place, and action is the specialty of the filmmaker, in scenes of riot worthy of the best war movies. Read
• 6.0 El MundoFrancisco Marinero Song Kang-ho (who has participated in 'Memories of Murder', 'The Host' and 'Snowpiercer', three excellent Korean movies released here) is the best possible performer of that driver desperate for money and involuntary hero but finally decidedly helpful for that reporter, an objective of military and police forces, and getting himself implicated on the riots. Read
• 6.0 FotogramasFausto Fernández Maybe with some excess of length, the movie puts its focus in the human beings, in the humanity of the characters, although it doesn't know how to get rid of certain manicheism. Read
• 5.0 Roger EbertSimon Abrams Song is even good enough to make the otherwise canned scene where he tearfully breaks down, and talks about how hard it was to lose his wife. As he sobs uncontrollably, Song makes you wish that this moment had as much impact as it should. This big moment ultimately falls flat though, as the makers of 'A Taxi Driver' would sooner print an unbelievable legend than a relatable truth. Read
• 4.0 ABCAntonio Weinrichter When it gets down to business, it presents the riot in an exhaustive and weaken way, with a cast of civilian heroes and institutional villains that, talking as if their dialogues were underlined with a bold highmarker, they seem out of and old Chinese propaganda film. Read
• 4.0 El PeriódicoNando Salvá 'A Taxi Driver' shows itself less interested in reality that in reproducing narrative formules that are already well-known, like the journey of a selfish man that starts to develop some political conscience or the strange friendship that is borns between two opposite personalities. Read
• New York TimesAndy Webster But most impressive is Mr. Song, who persuasively conveys a working stiff?s political awakening. Read
• The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden In unexpected and wonderfully satisfying ways, 'A Taxi Driver' taps into the symbiotic relationship between foreign correspondents and locals, particularly in times of crisis. Though filled with moments of taut suspense and quick action, Jang?s film is also rewardingly unrushed, a quality exemplified by an extended sequence in which the visitors from Seoul share a meal and an evening with Yoo?s Gwangju cabbie and his family. Read
• Screen DailyJason Bechervaise Front and centre, though, is an excellent Song Kang-ho who repeatedly demonstrates how his presence can transform a film, much the same as 'The Attorney', another 1980s-set, politically charged, film. Foreign actors have invariably come across as awkward and out of place in Korean cinema, but Thomas Kretschmann is a rare example of an performer who can comfortably mould with the rest of the cast. Read
• VarietyMaggie Lee Although the film?s portrayal of its main characters has recognizable precedents, the two lead actors calibrate their mutual respect and co-dependency to engaging effect, as the escalating violence and peril heighten their sense of personal mission. Read