You Were Never Really Here

The way this movie was hyped up in the press about it being the Next Taxi Driverobviously raised my expectations and Phoenix being the Antihero ah-la Travis Brickle .

Well, did I get letdown like a disappointed kid at Xmas when he didnt get what he expected.

If Phoenix won best actor at the Sundance Festival for his performance in this film.

Then Im decidedly in the wrong profession. He had a one dimensional character, very dark and not much else to him.

The hammer being the DIY tool of choice , which you never actually see it nailing anything.

And theres no real curiosity or imagination attached to the extent of him using the hammer.

If you havent seen The Professional With Natalie Portman and Luc Besson and Gary Oldma...

I did not feel as positively about You Were Never Really Here as most people seem to have, but I do absolutely recommend it. One of Jaoquin Phoenix's best roles, and that is about as far from small praise as it gets.

Final rating: - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go.

There werent a lot of lines for Joaquin Phoenix to learn for this gritty and brutal story of Joe. He makes a living retrieving girls who have gone missing - voluntarily or otherwise, and repatriating them. Occasionally this happens straightforwardly, but more frequently this is a violent and dangerous business that sees him having to fend off people both in and out of uniform. Its this latest job to rescue Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov) that is proving to be his most testing and as he struggles to rescue his quarry from a short-lived career in sexploitation, and stay in one piece, he is suddenly immersed in reminiscences of his own turbulent childhood. With his adrenalin all that is keeping him going, might this operation be his undoing or might...