Well, they were pimping out children.
Travis could have called the cops, I guess.
But Travis was insane, and bloodthirsty. At least the people he killed were scumbags.
Maybe his punishment is yet to come, or perhaps his day to day existence was punishment in and of itself.
This been discussed before and some point out that the lack of any legal debacle at the movie's end proves that he was hallucinating or dying and just living out a happy ending in his dying brain. I'd argue that Scorscese and Schrader intentionally ended it on a high note and that all the aftermath was a result of all the circumstances conveniently playing themselves out. Things like all of the men he killed were wanted for various past offenses and avoided prosecution which would lead to a huge embarrassment for the city DA and the NYPD so they look at Travis as a convenient diversion to credit him for saving a child sex slave just in the nick of time before they came upon the scene.
shareBeen a while since I’ve watched it, but if I remember correctly we see that Travis kept a bunch of news clippings detailing the incident and aftermath, and I always took that to mean he had basically gotten away with vigilante justice because of special circumstances, like maybe public opinion was in his favor.
But, if anything, he should have at least got into some sort of trouble for illegally owning weapons. And that contraption he built for his arm should have raised some red flags, not to mention his haircut.
Maybe the ending is just a rabid fantasy, or a daydream while he’s driving his taxi, but I’ve always taken the ending at face value.
Martin has at times said it's open to interpretation so I don't think he ever stated if the ending was absolutely true or not. I like to think that the ending represents Travis' seduction of the audience's expectations but he will forever be stuck in our minds as an unstable taxi driver wandering aimlessly.
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