Lurking beneath the humor of director Brian_De_Palma's irreverent breakthrough comedy is the politically charged suggestion that, in an already hyped-up environment, Vietnam vets may not be so easily re-assimilated to the home front. The main character of Rubin is something of a precursor to star Robert_De_Niro's ultra-violent, ultra-alienated Travis Bickle in Martin_Scorsese's Taxi_Driver (1976). Independently produced, and shot for very little money on location in the Village, the film has a loose narrative structure and apt downtown details that give it a keen feel for the counterculture milieu on which it comments. More a cult favorite than a mainstream success, the film spotlights De_Palma's visual smarts and interest in media voyeurism, and De_Niro's off-kilter Rubin, retrospectively making Hi, Mom! a clever forerunner of the subsequent '70s work of both men. Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

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