NEW YORK - Parallels to Martin Scorsese's dark classic "Taxi Driver" led Jodie Foster to take a role in her new movie, "The Brave One."

The 1976 film portrays a cabby driven to madness amid a crime-ridden and debt-filled New York City climate. The newer film is a story about living with fear in New York after Sept. 11.

"When I first read the script, honestly, it didn't remind me enough of 'Taxi Driver,'" Foster said in an interview published in this week's Newsweek. "That was one of my issues with it. There was all this room for something more beautiful."

Foster, who was in "Taxi Driver" as a 13-year-old, stars as Erica Bain, a radio host who survives an attack that kills her fiance. Afterward, she learns to use a gun and finds situations in which to use it.

The two-time Oscar winner spoke to Newsweek last summer, on the film's set in Brooklyn. The Warner Bros. release opens Sept. 14.