Roger Ebert vs Harry Knowles: Comparing Kick-Ass and Taxi Driver

by Manny Castro | April 16, 2010 at 10:14 pm

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Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert criticized Kick-Ass for its violent scenes involving an 11-year-old girl. He wasn't alone.

Ain't It Cool News' Harry Knowles reminded Ebert of a time when he defended Martin Scorsese for casting a 13-year-old Jodie Foster as a prostitute in 1976's Taxi Driver.

Others note in reviews of Kick-Ass, that it is too simply to dismiss the character of Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) as a swearing bad girl. She's a victim of her father's madness.

Kick-Ass, Taxi Driver & The Searchers

In Kick-Ass, the main character (Aaron Johnson) is a high school teenager who decides to become a superhero and though he fails on many levels, he manages to save an 11-year-old girl.

In Taxi Driver, the character of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) does the same. Bickle starts the movie as a Vietnam veteran who wants to murder a political candidate to impress the woman he loves. Then he meets a 13-year-old prostitute and realizes his true calling.

In Kick-Ass, the character is in the same situation. He may not possess the ability to bring down a criminal empire, but he can save one child.

It evokes John Ford's The Searchers, which starred John Wayne as a confederate soldier who must rescue his niece (Natalie Wood) from the Native Americans that kidnapped her. He may have lost the Civil War, but he can save this one child.