Two things

1. Another BLEED INTO ME review. Montana Magazine. Here.
2. This, from up front in Amy Taubin’s BFI book on TAXI DRIVER:

Really, it is not violence at all which is the ‘point’ of the western movie, but a certain image of man, a style, which expresses itself most clearly in violence. Watch a child with his toy guns and you will see: what most interests him is not (as we so much fear) the fantasy of hurting others, but to work out how a man might look when he shoots or is shot. A hero is one who looks like a hero.

Robert Worshow, “The Westerner”