Few actors alive have starred in as many iconic movies as Robert De Niro. As such, the man can offer us several lessons on the value of legacy. After all, if you’ve spent the last half-decade as the public image of some of the most celebrated cultural moments, how do you reconcile that as a person? Do you keep working, even though you risk diluting the power of your best work? Do you retire, professionally a legend but potentially personally unfulfilled? It’s a quandary.
But perhaps Robert De Niro has found the perfect third way. Here is an 80-year-old man who has discovered the ideal method to keep acting while reminding the world of the power of his most visceral characters: adverts.
You will have seen, of course, the advert that De Niro made two years ago for the British industrial bakery Warburtons, in which his riffed on his Goodfellas character so aggressively that the name of the commercial was literally GoodBagels – even though a fleet of scientists would never be able to make that work as a pun. At the time, some accused De Niro of selling out. If anything, it might have been the start of a new era, for right now, ladies and gentlemen, De Niro is making a commercial for Uber. Because he was once in a film called Taxi Driver, and Uber is a taxi. Isn’t that wonderful?
Not much is known about the new advert yet, except that it is going to be filmed in London, that De Niro will reprise his iconic “You talkin’ to me?” line and that a source close to the commercial thinks that it’s “a great idea”. And, really, isn’t that enough?
We still don’t know the plot of the advert, but you suspect that it will go one of two ways. Both involve De Niro driving an Uber around. In the first, he is driven to a point of misanthropic rage by the ugly behaviour of his passengers, and eventually takes it out on the world by going on a bloodthirsty downvoting rampage. In the second, given the comparative comfort and quality of lifestyle offered to Uber drivers, he just drives them around happily because he works for a company that affords him the time and space to take care of his mental health. In both of these scenarios, by the way, he wants to know if someone is talking to him.
It’s genius, isn’t it? Not only is De Niro getting paid what must surely be an extraordinary amount of money for not a lot of work, but it also demonstrates what a close eye he’s keeping on the culture. Because, really, who has the time to watch an entire film these days? Barely anyone, unless they’re able to keep themselves interested by scrolling through Instagram on their phone at the same time. Also, Taxi Driver is old. Who on earth would want to watch old things when the world is full of shiny new things, like Shazam 2 or Is It Cake? Yuck.
So, really, we should be applauding De Niro here for the valuable service he is providing the world. He has ultimately boiled down a long and complex film to its purest essence, which is a man asking someone if they’re talking to him. Now, when some dreary film nerd corners you and asks if you’ve seen Taxi Driver, you can pull on your knowledge of the Uber adverts and reply, “Yes, it’s the film about the 80-year-old man in London in the year 2023 who keeps asking people whether they’re talking to him or not,” and the nerd will say, “Yes that’s correct,” and leave you alone.
In fact, we should probably encourage Robert De Niro to do more of this sort of thing. So much of his filmography remains untouched by the glorious hand of advertising. He hasn’t made an advert based on Raging Bull, for example, which seems a shame when there is literally already a product named after cattle doing a thing. Is the world ready for Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull 2: Laughing Cow? I would assume the answer is almost certainly yes.
