Peter Fowler

Taxi Driver Two

This revolves around Tim West, an advertising executive who is developing a Channel 4 programme on cooking for terrorists. Disillusioned by the hyper-reality of the media world, he joins Robert de Niro evening classes, but also falls under the pastoral influence of Johnny Morris. From the opening images of night-time, car-ridden streets accompanied by languorous sax on the soundtrack, through to the sub-Chandleresque voice-over narration, Taxi Driver II strikes you with its clever knowingness. But it's more than just a clever nod in the direction of contemporary film noir, just as it's more than an incestuous joke at the expense of the London based media world: it's a telling comment on the contemporary media culture of postmodernism.