Popular reviews

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  Review by Jay ★★★★½ 12

  joaquin phoenix whacking paedophiles with a hammer. call it whacking phoenix

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 29

  fuuuuckkkk yes.

  Lynne Ramsay directing Joaquin Phoenix in a *super* art house TAKEN (complete with POINT BLANK stylings) that's glazed with Jonny Greenwood's best score to date. obviously hacked within an inch of its life but the skeleton is fascinating. i wanted to watch this over from the start as soon as it ended.

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★½ 4

  Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t make a lot of movies. It’s easy to forget about him when he’s not around. Then he shows up in something and you’re like “Oh right he’s basically the best actor in the world.”

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  Review by Jacob ★★★★★ 14

  A radical deconstruction of the action genre and what we've come to expect from our heroes. Fantasy, flashback and reality are all swirled together, a trauma-saturated past manifesting as shard of glass in the soul. The question of "did that really happen?" has never been less important. Ramsay owns this film, particularly in her writing. Phoenix is good, but it's the absolutely impeccable editing that creates his powerful performance. Though there's minimal dialogue, the impressionistic soundscape paired with Jonny Greenwood's pulsating score makes this film feel anything but quiet.  

  How can a man save anyone else when he cannot save himself?

  Rating: 92/100

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  Review by Lucy ★★★★★ 18

  about as close to perfect as a film can get, i think

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 7

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Was a 72, now an 86

  Thoughts after a cathartic second pass:

  - Joe taking the stairs when he's in control and then, perhaps unconsciously, deciding on the elevator when the whole situation is fucked is such an acute observational detail, and one of many for this movie.

  - Another: the sound-effect of the gas pump being synced to Joe's ticking watch. Each moment and element is finely-tuned - a mechanism subversion of a genre frequently left to sort through viscera and pain.

  - The psychic connection between Joe and Nina is quite startling, and it reinforces how Joe's self-loathing is predetermined by the trauma the people around him feel, and how he soaks it in. That Joe starts counting,…

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  Review by sophie ★★★★ 2

  my sexuality is good films that are less than 90 minutes

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★½ 27

  47/100

  When people who dislike Taxi Driver describe their understanding of it, this is the film they're actually describing. Schrader acknowledges Travis' military service without ever employing it as an excuse; Ramsay serves up jagged flashbacks at key moments to suggest PTSD. Iris' heartbreaking failure to recognize how she's being exploited complicates the story; Nina barely exists here as anything more than a symbol of innocence defiled. Taxi Driver maintains a queasy tension but withholds violence until the horrific climax; You Were Never Really Here plays like said climax turned into its own feature-length badass exercise. Ramsay's formal expertise makes individual sequences (e.g. the security-cam massacre) thrilling, but the movie as a whole feels utterly hollow, especially when it tries…

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  Review by Lucy ★★★★½ 7

  lynne ramsay is a god. and that’s all i have to say about that

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 23

  It may not appear so at first glance, but this is a Lynne Ramsay film through and through -- a heart wrenching, hyperviolent addition to her oeuvre of films focusing on the individual's psychological response and post-traumatic path subsequent to their environment's introduction of an unexpected and uncontrollable tragedy. Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and You Were Never Really Here could almost function as an unofficial trilogy dealing with said theme, exploring lonely, singular minds' reactions to larger, more macro-level issues such as the suicide of a loved one, the parenting of a psychopath and the abduction & exploitation of children. Joaquin Phoenix sinks deep into his role of the enigmatic Joe, a war veteran and former member…

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  Review by #1 gizmo fan ★★★★★ 9

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  "Let's go. It's a beautiful day."

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  Review by k(arst)en ★★★★ 3

  I’m sad