Can a movie become a cult classic when it's obvious how hard it's trying?  Director Panos Cosmatos' supremely weird Mandy is primed for midnight movie greatness, but at times it's a little too content to riding the coattails of its influences.

Lumberjack Red Miller (Nicholas Cage) lives in an isolated cabin with his artist girlfriend Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), who catches the eye of folk singer, sex/drug cult leader Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache).  Jeremiah attempts to seduce Mandy by way of impressing her with his sweet tunes, which doesn't really go as planned...as you could have guessed based on Mandy's penchant to wearing metal rock tshirts.  Unfortunately for her, Jeremiah is a sensitive artist who reacts to her disdain in a gruesome manner, launching a wrathful rampage by Red, bent on vengeance by any means.

Mandy is Lynchian at its first half, and Raimi-esque by the second.  It's a weird trip that often depicts an 80s heavy metal album cover come to life, and although it has some wonderful zingers of lines, it also has some oddly lazy ones like when a demon biker gang member slashes at Red with a knife and Red rages "that was my favorite shirt!"  It's a moment that easily gets some chuckles from the audience, but feels more like a missed opportunity at a better, wittier line.

There's no denying Mandy's style, and it comes as no surprise that Cosmatos is the son of director George P. Cosmatos who helmed Rambo II and Cobra.  Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb works some grungy magic with red-drenched scenes and surreal strobe flares.  Not to be forgotten is Johan Johansson's synth heavy soundtrack, proving his versatility and skill once again (and once again making us mourn his untimely departure).  The low budget forced the team to work in digital, even if their influences are strictly analog, but Mandy is nevertheless able to evince a look that is both low-focus grain and slickly graphic novel.

That duality plays out in its tone, which is both its strength and its weakness.  Mandy ends up being a complete gorefest, but wants you to admire it more than have fun.  It never descends into camp or meta winks, but yet wants to be a vintage 80s action fest all the same.  It's not as genuine as a Lynch feature, which is just plain strange without worrying about how it will be perceived.  The production is so heavy, the only reason it doesn't completely overwhelm its characters is because of Cage's manic performance and Riseborough's otherworldly detachment.  Cage, thankfully, pops out of the blood-soaked veneer of the movie with the sheer strength of his white-balled gaze and bared fangs.  The same can't be said about its admittedly creepy yet mostly forgettable villains.

There's a masterpiece that's hinted at here, if Mandy had merely gone through a few tweaks.  But that doesn't mean it isn't a good romp to enjoy with a midnight crowd.  There's certainly a new scene to add to Cage's curriculum vitae of film freak-outs, and it might be worth it alone to witness Red's armory (including a shotgun crossbow, amongst others).  However, Mandy ends up being more of a missed opportunity that tries a little too hard.

There's a scene partway through Colette where the heroine is watching the opening scene of a play based on her semi-autobiographical book.  The stage actress pronounces her lines with affectation and she postures before a painted backdrop.  It's a pale shadow of the novel's words, and beyond that, of Colette's life -- a thought that visibly passes across Colette's face at that moment.

Colette, based on the life of French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette unfortunately has that feeling of being but a wan portrayal of the firebrand who became known for her journalistic and literary accomplishments, as well as her sexual exploits with men and women alike.  Director Wash Westmoreland chooses to focus on Colette's early life and her evolution from naive country waif to the exceedingly modern woman she became.  A country girl without a dowry, Colette (Keira Knightley) marries a man 14 years her senior, a lively Parisian philanderer named Willy (Dominic West).  Before long, he's using her natural writing skills to his benefit, putting his name to wildly successful novels that she writes for him.

Colette certainly gives Knightley more of a range to plumb, and it's satisfying to see her with a role she can sink her teeth into.  There's a distance from her character though, that is more at fault with the pacing and writing.  Scenes are separated by leaps in time, and despite being a sort of origin story, we don't see as much of the actual inception as much as we could.  We're led to believe that Colette needs only to be locked up into a room to produce literature, and to be subject to her husband's infidelity to pursue sexual fluidity.

This is not to say that Colette is not a thoroughly engaging film.  There are delicious barbs of wit punctuating the script and Colette's road to artistic independence is far more contemporary than its backdrop would suggest.  Westmoreland struggles to achieve the exact message he wants to convey.  Is it the double life or meta existence within existence that Colette creates for herself when she writes herself into a story for her husband?  Constantly throughout the film, we see Colette reflected and refracted through glass even as we experience her literary heroine reflected and refracted through her words.  She's transformed into the public's image of the literary heroine and thus begins to see images and imitations of herself wherever she looks.  It's an interesting theme that Westmoreland could have studied with more depth.  The trajectory of the story would indicate that he wants to talk about Colette's metamorphosis, but it's more of a push and pull between her and her husband -- in fact, it seems that the more that her husband does wrong, the more she finds freedom.

There's nothing novel or incendiary in the story, but it's worth it to see Knightley's performance in a role that is both period and relevant.  Where it fails is that in reading more into Sidonie-Gabrielle's history, we're surprised by a life that is far more expansive and compelling than what Westmoreland decided to convey.

Is there anything more entertaining than watching Tom Cruise run?  Whenever he's running, you legitimately believe that the world is going to explode if he doesn't get to his destination on time.  And so he runs against the ticking clock, or jumps out of a plane, or flies a helicopter, or does any number of stunts that prove to be more and more jawdropping as the film progresses.  And of course, the real draw has been (since Mission Impossible III) the fact that Cruise is doing all of his own stunts.  Production halted on Fallout because he broke his ankle during one of the stunts, and they actually kept that specific shot in the film.  The limp he affects right after the jump isn't an affectation at all, but a hobble as he struggles to finish the take on the ankle.

It's been over twenty years since Brian De Palma's original movie, and the series has blossomed into the best action film since Mad Max Fury Road.  Christopher McQuarrie comes back from the previous Rogue Nation to direct Cruise in the latest installment of Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and the IMF team who have to recover plutonium cores after a mission goes awry.

It's a deceptively simple plot, but McQuarrie juggles a mindboggling amount of balls in order to make the story as clear and emotionally relevant as it does.  First, we have the cast of characters that has grown together over the past few installments.  The chemistry between Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) is believably compelling because it's been built and hard-earned.  The trust that they have for each other is therefore a given.  A complaint I had about Rogue Nation was the lack of character development because the cast was already established.  Here, McQuarrie uses that familiarity to build serious moments and to make us care more for the characters.  As Ethan shows over and over again as his ethos, we care for the one just as much as the many.  McQuarrie wisely understands the best way to get us emotionally invested in the stakes and the plot is our empathy for this cast.

Second, McQuarrie brings the audience in again with the stunts.  There's something beautiful about the verisimilitude of Cruise's stunts.  When he tears around on a motorcycle without a helmet, he has to reach out his leg time and time again to keep his balance.  It's not a move that James Bond would ever have to make, but it makes it that much more realistic.  Cruise constantly shows that he's willing to take a hit.  He's like Jackie Chan in that way (just as Tom Cruise is to Daniel Craig as Jackie Chan is to Jet Li) -- when you put Jackie Chan in a room with 20 enemies, you know that he's going to get out, but he's definitely going to get banged up in the process.  The similarity to Chan doesn't end there -- McQuarrie and Cruise both understand that to film a proper action scene, we need to see both the hit and the impact of it in one shot.  It's the kind of editing that shows that Cruise is actually getting thrown from a collision.  It's also the reason why, when Cruise is driving against traffic at one point in the movie, the camera pulls back from his point of view to show him actually doing it.  It may not be closer to the action, but it definitely makes more of an impact to see him in the thick of it.  Fallout doesn't try to hide any of the action with shaky cameras, dark lighting, and confused or rapid edits.  When we're smack in the middle of one of the most exciting car chase scenes in the last decade, there isn't even a soundtrack to influence our emotions.  What exists in the scene is just the sound of the engine in an unadulterated, genuinely thrilling chase.

I'm still waiting for the day that Tom Cruise starts including a stunt blooper reel a la Jackie Chan at the end of his films.

Again and again, the team is given impossible scenarios.  And each time, Ethan Hunt says "we'll figure it out".  And that is the sort of trust that the audience builds for this movie.  It's all a little ridiculous -- the set up of a time bomb, or the hijinks that are necessary for every supposedly uncrackable security system -- but it's a conceit that we've come to accept.  At this time, we trust that every decision made is made for the good of the movie.  And each impossible situation comes with an excited expectation of being dazzled by the solution.

The impossible situation set up by Fallout's conclusion is thus:  how will they ever come up with a sequel to top this one?  But as always, we'll be eager to see how Hunt and his team figures it out.

Everyone's favorite mutant mercenary is back in the form of Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) AKA Deadpool.  He's as irreverent and fourth-wall breaking as ever, but does it work for a second round?

The answer, for the most part, is no.  The original Deadpool did as well as it did probably because it was an anathema to the already bloated superhero culture, but its sequel has chosen to be part of the problem in a completely uninspired, lazy, often painful to watch superhero flick.

In the sequel, Deadpool seeks some sort of redemption after being told by the love of his life, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) that his "heart isn't in the right place."  What follows is a hodge-podge time travel rip-off of Terminator and a plotline also dangerously close to X-Men: Days of Future Past.  The jokes keep flying, as well as body parts, but it never does it naturally or flippantly.  They're all predictable and somehow dull.  Director David Leitch (Atomic Blonde), known more for action choreography, never lets the movie breathe.  Somehow, even Avengers has managed its serious/humor balance better.  When a scene is supposed to be heavy or somber, Leitch never allows us to feel the impact of it before slapping another joke on.  Similarly, some of the jokes never land because they're not given the right amount of space.  And time travel as a subject is always tricky, but Deadpool 2 writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick basically just use it as a get out of jail free card to do whatever they want, completely eliminating any sense of suspense or emotion we might be tempted to feel for these characters.

It's a pity because there's some good material here.  Zazie Beetz sparkles as Domino, but really we could use better camera direction to really emphasize the physical comedy that's possible with her mutant ability.  It's largely wasted and that's a huge shame.  The other characters are paper thin and completely underdeveloped.  Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Wasteland is basically an afterthought and Vanessa's character has somehow devolved from being every man's cool girl to representing a toxic masculine outlook.  She has no character or purpose other than to represent the sort of perfect "woman who's cool with anything" that is merely there for Wade to return home to.  Also disappointingly, Julian Dennison is merely the same exact character as his other role in Hunt for Wilderpeople.

But perhaps this is just clever subversive writing?  Well, just because you point out your own flaws doesn't excuse them, such as when Deadpool refers to a "steaming pile of foreshadowing" to subvert some lazy writing.  There's never a chance for us to be worried about any of the characters, and part of that is simply because Deadpool apparently just can't die, and part of that is because they're never really put in any danger.  At one point, Deadpool and another character unload into a group of medical staff who are all holding guns.  Do they deserve it? -- well, yes the story does lead you to that conclusion, but is that really necessary?  I'm not even sure they knew how to properly use those guns, and yet it somehow made sense for the writers to unleash not just Deadpool in all his mutant glory but another fighter into a full-on anti-climactic battle against them.

Deadpool 2's problem is that it holds nothing sacred.  Before, the excessive violence and fourth-wall meta mockery might have been fresh, but now it relies far too much on that while eschewing good storytelling, fleshed out characters, and an actual conflict.  Better luck next time, but we'll hope that your third movie takes the route of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade after Temple of Doom and not Godfather Part III.

In Prospect, a teenage girl Cee (Sophie Thatcher) and her father Damon (Jay Duplass) land on a green moon to harvest its riches.  However, set in a toxic atmosphere amongst other deadly unknowns, their straightforward mission becomes one where escape is synonymous with survival.

Director duo Chris Caldwell and Zeek Earl's first feature-length film is actually an expansion of a short film they released four years ago.  Usually the result of such an expansion is a movie that has a good trickle of an idea that wears out too quickly, or a plotline that doesn't have enough substance.  Caldwell and Earl have somehow managed to do the exact opposite -- in this compact movie that runs at 98 minutes, they manage to hint at a whole galaxy of stories and characters that exist vibrantly outside of this feature film.

Prospect opens on a usual humbling establishing shot of a spacecraft drifting amongst the stars, but this time the scene has all the romance of a scrappy VW van road trip that's gone on for too long.  The equipment is beat, there are dirty smudges everywhere, and its inhabitants -- Cee and her father -- are a little greasy and none too pleased with each other's company.  There's no glamour in this final frontier; instead, Cee and her father are more like a family barely hovering over poverty, living out their lives on some desperate jobs.

Their latest is a prospecting one for mercenaries.  Damon has a set of skills that allows him to harvest a sort of space oyster through a series of complicated steps that if done right produce an amber-like jewel called an Aurelac.  So far so good, until they're beset with snags such as a time crunch, an unwanted crash landing, and other unsavory characters after the same goods.

Prospect is a marvel of world-building, where there are hundreds of little details that have been thought out but aren't too gaudily displayed.  The costumes are lived in, and the ragged breaths the actors drag in while encased in helmets are probably not feigned.  Caldwell and Earl have more than once ruefully remarked that this kind of attention to detail only comes from immersing themselves in the Star Wars Visual Encyclopedia growing up.  Whatever the cause, it's both their care and also their confidence in letting it stand for itself without overexplaining that make this film work.  Caldwell and Earl opened up their own shops to create their props, costumes, and effects over the space of a year, and the few CG effects in the movie such as a giant moon backdrop seem like they're mined off of those old sci-fi paperbacks you could buy by the dollar.

Prospect relies almost completely on the shoulders of Thatcher, and she's a marvel of her own.  Seemingly stoic at times, and yet hinting at a far complicated emotional depth that comes from her rich backstory, she's capable in a world where she's completely out of her depth.  At many points, she lacks the skill to go forward, but not the fortitude.  The growth of her character throughout the movie provides a surprisingly moving climax.  Pedro Pascal, who plays another spaceman Ezra, chews through all of his lines, clearly evincing a pleasure at each line he has to drawl out, sounding like the narrator of Bastion.  He's as delightful as he is improbable.

Besides the sheer satisfaction of a story well told, Prospect is also beautiful to behold.  Shot primarily on indie favorites, cameras from RED digital, they've managed to transform the Hoh rainforest in Washington to something both bizarre and approachable.  It's appropriate for this intimate space western, that feels both retro and startling current.  Daniel L.K. Caldwell also provides an understated, yet stirring score.

Although Prospect hasn't been picked up yet for a wider release, it's a stunning debut that certainly deserves to be.

It's truly difficult to judge a documentary such as Won't You Be My Neighbor on its technicalities because of the subject matter.  Director Morgan Neville (20 Feet From Stardom) states clearly that he didn't set out to make a documentary about Fred Rogers himself, but rather his philosophy and ideas.  The result is a film that not only makes us wish we had treasured the man even more while he was alive, but drives home how needed and relevant his philosophy is today.

It may have been a simpler time, but Mr. Rogers from the beginning never shied away from the complexities or the value of children's feelings and thoughts.  One of his first episodes in 1968 has his puppet King Friday XIII ("one of the few remaining benevolent despots") erecting a large wall to keep out the people from outside his kingdom.  Through either direct or indirect learning, Fred Rogers talked about acceptance, divorce, and assassination (in an episode made after the Robert F. Kennedy assassination) among other topics.

Won't You Be My Neighbor does have a few interviews scattered throughout its run, but it for the most part thrives on significant episodes of the long-running series Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood as well as a few clips of Mr. Rogers talking himself, including one that opens the movie where he talks about guiding children through the modulations of life.  It would be accurate to say that it isn't an accurate portrayal of Fred Rogers himself -- there is very little about his childhood or his private life.  There's not necessarily an even judgment of his character, as everyone on screen only has glowing, positive things to say about him.  But to criticize that aspect of it completely misses the point of the documentary, which is that Neville feels so strongly about the importance of Mr. Rogers' hopes and how especially pertinent his message is today.

Time and time again, Mr. Rogers comes back to the value of each human being and it shows in all of his relationships -- from mentoring Yo-Yo Ma on being in the public spotlight, to writing back to every single one of his fan letters, and even to his family (one of his sons ruefully described him as the "second Christ").  It's not a message meaning we are entitled or owed something, which one Fox News segment attempts to twist into -- rather, it's a message that empowers us to owe something even as we are told of our inherent worth as a human being.

There's certainly more to the man that this documentary is able to convey, and yet Neville carries the spirit of Fred Rogers forward in this film for it's impossible to sit through it without feeling the emotion of the man's life and wanting to live to the full potential of it.  Neville weaves a strong connective thematic tissue as the concise documentary unfolds.  His love for the man is stunningly apparent, as is the love that Mr. Rogers felt for humanity.

Won't You Be My Neighbor will receive a wide release June 8th.

"This is not based on a true story" American Animals assures us from the title page.

In the next moment, the middle words are erased and we're left instead with the statement: "This is a true story."

That kind of tongue-in-cheek play on truth is what drives the first stranger than fiction film from long-time documentarian Bart Layton.  The film plays like a mockumentary, with the main story interjected with interviews...until we realize that the interviews are done with the actual people that the story is about.

American Animals is the true tale about four well-to-do young men who plan a heist to steal some of the rarest and most valuable books from Transylvania University's library.  Despite dreams of grandeur and hours of heist movie research, the plan only manages to expose their motivation to be somehow extraordinary.

Despite the presence of the real people, this is thankfully not The 15:17 to Paris a la Clint Eastwood.  The younger versions of the men involved are played by a crew of extremely likable and talented actors including Barry Keoghan (The Killing of a Sacred Deer), Evan Peters (the highlight of X-Men: Days of Future Past), Blake Jenner (Everybody Wants Some!!), and Jared Abrahamson (Travelers).  Some of the actors look and act remarkably like their counterparts, whereas other represent a radically different stage of life.

Each has life handed to them on a silver platter -- from Warren (Peters) who has a sports scholarship to Eric (Abrahamson) who is the stereotypical glazed expression student who is able to answer the most complicated challenges set on the board.  And yet, in each there's a kernel of belief that there's something more that's meant for them -- which ends up being the impetus to the film.  Unlike most heist movies, there's no real motivation such as a financial need driving these boys.  And so despite what they dream up, it ends up being far less Reservoir Dogs and more Crime and Punishment.  More than anything, it's the experience, the thrill of it, and the question of whether they can that drives them forward towards a line they're not actually ready to cross.

American Animals manages to be more than your cautionary heist tale though because of the form that Layton has juggled here.  The sobering interviews he's managed to capture with the four men, now a decade past the deed, not only shed light on the motivations of the characters but also their complete lack of foresight.  And the emotional catharsis that is felt is more akin to the documentary-like capture in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon than a scene that is meant to exonerate them of their own guilt.  The film simple doesn't work if the honesty of it doesn't come across, or if the truthful sections smack of any cheap emotional fabrication.  Fortunately, Layton avoids that.

The movie manages to start with a more naturalistic look before devolving into stylish Hollywoodland, paralleling the psyche of the boys who dream up a movie plotline, complete with an Ocean's 11-like sequence.  It's clever in how it teases the storytelling, with one scene involving the real Warren and the fake Warren in a car together, questioning how it actually went down.  The mix of diegetic and non-diegetic sound also heightens the drama and interplay between reality and what is staged.

A truly fresh take on what sounds like an urban legend, Layton's feature works because of his finesse in juggling the story but also because of the undeniable skill of the four actors playing the young men.  Even if the best part of fiction is an unvarnished truth, it takes a keen eye to recreate it in all its nail-biting glory on screen, and kudos to Layton for plotting it out so acutely.

American Animals will receive a wide release June 1st.

Do you remember when Marvel vs. Capcom first came to arcades and the sheer unadulterated glee you felt at pairing up dream teams and the nerding out over the combo attacks?

At its best moments, ​Avengers: Infinity Wars taps into that pure joy.  It's like a crossover episode in the best ways, like when the ego of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) butts heads with Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), or when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) strikes up an unlikely friendship with Groot (Vin Diesel).  When you have a story like this that comes as a culmination of 20 movies and too many characters to keep track of, the story has to skate thin on character development and focus on the chemistry or tensions of the different mashups.

The latest Avengers movie comes with the highest stakes yet, finally featuring a formidable Thanos (Josh Brolin) whose presence has been steadily built up (mostly in the stingers) from previous Marvel movies.  He's on a mission to collect all of the Infinity Stones in order to accrue the power to destroy half the universe.  Half the universe is neither a generalization or an exaggeration.  Thanos believes that the universe has a finite amount of resources and they are too scarce to go around.  His solution is an indiscriminate genocide of a random half of the universe to make sure that everyone can live with full bellies.

The Marvel universe has had its fair share of forgettable villains -- you'd be commended for even remembering half of them -- and Thanos is a funny one.  He's allowed more development because arguably the film centers around him - his journey to collect the stones, his arc and his tribulations.  However, he's so matter-of-fact, he's not that interesting.  He's so single-minded it's admirable but it doesn't make for compelling storytelling.  It doesn't help that his emotion depends largely on the effectiveness of his purple CG face, although there could be no better man to try than Brolin.

The usual complaints of the Avengers mashups remain, in that characters get lost in the mix.  Some exceptions include Thor, coming off of Ragnarok with aplomb and both Spiderman (Tom Holland) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) provide a needed emotional core.  With so many characters and the resulting minimized screen time, it quickly becomes clear who has acting chops and doesn't.  Cumberbatch is convincing with every word, whereas you can't help but wonder if they had to pipe eyedrops into Chris Pratt's eyes to conjure his emotion.  However, story-wise, Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) is essentially only there to provide soldiers for a slaughter and we get no chance at all to absorb the impact Captain America: Civil War has had on a much-hardened Steve Rogers (Chris Evans).

As a two-parter, Infinity Wars has the inevitable misfortune as a set-up movie for the finale.  We can't expect a resolution, nor can we really expect a full character arc for anyone involved.  The way the story is set up however, the biggest fault is the lack of stakes.  Although Infinity Wars starts off with a bang, by the end we're no longer feeling the effect of the losses and we lose the emotional impact of the destruction.  Furthermore, at this point in the ​Avengers queue, it's hard to keep feeling frustrated at how ineffectual some of the team members are at working together and it's tiring how often they're the source of their own failure.  How big does an ego have to be to supersede the fate of the universe?

Infinity Wars also suffers from a muddled theme.  As said before, Thanos has a focused intent and is all too ready to sacrifice in order to achieve it.  This is juxtaposed against the different members of the Avengers who are constantly given choices throughout the movie to sacrifice something for the greater good.  It's very clear that a theme was meant to be established there, but not entirely sure what it's meant to say because there is no consistency in what they say, do, or what results.  Perhaps we'll get a clearer answer in the sequel and the conclusion to this arc of the Marvel universe.

However, these are minor quips in the scope of what the film needs to accomplish.  Avengers has always been about the threat of a villain too large to defeat alone and the fun of seeing everyone come together.  The Marvel universe has always been good at balancing humor with drama, and that's what makes this an enjoyable romp albeit not one meant for constant rewatches.  Some of the more weakly written characters get lost, but there's undeniable entertainment in getting to see your other favorites again.  The most you can ask is for a rollicking good time and a true sense of the danger the heroes need to save us from.  It's a movie to laugh to, gasp at, and cheer for.  Grab a large bag of popcorn and enjoy the ride.

On a final note, the Avengers movies have come out every three years, and they've each marked a sort of different stage of my review writing for films.  Here are the previous ones, just for fun:

Avengers

Avengers: Age of Ultron

In You Were Never Really Here, Lynn Ramsay's latest anti-hero Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is a war veteran whose job is tracking down missing girls even as he runs from his own internal demons.  Unsparing in brutality, Joe has to examine his own motivations when a job goes down a rabbit hole of betrayal and conspiracy.

When told that Joe's weapon of choice is a ball-peen hammer, you expect to sit through a movie with graphic and uncomfortable intensity.  Surprisingly though, Ramsay's scenes of physical violence are economical.  However, the intensity comes in Phoenix's mental violence and character struggles.  In an opening scene, you see his head wrapped in plastic bag as he self-asphyxiates and you're not sure whether he is contemplating suicide or pursuing the space as some sort of solace.  Ramsay is as unsparing here as anywhere else -- for a few moments, you feel as if you're suffocating with Joe in that closet, and you feel the same panicky lack of air he would.

You Were Never Really Here is based on a novella by Jonathan Ames of the same name, but it views more like a graphic novel come to life.  There are the same murky, vigilantic tones, and the same vibrant and stylistic slashes of color.  Ramsay's take is short on story, and there's nothing in there that is new.  Joe is another vigilante with nebulous intentions, perhaps seeking redemption in his quests to save wayward girls.  In the beginning, there's a fuzzy line between him and the men he takes down.  We first see visual trophies like a trinket or a girl snapshot, as if he himself were a predator, before he burns them.  Joe is a dangerous character, assured while on the job but completely unpredictable out of it.

What makes this film different from something akin to The Punisher, is Ramsay's unmistakable style.  She is able to convey the palpitations and overwhelming abrasiveness inside Joe's skin.  There's a too loud pumping soundtrack going on when Joe isn't pummeled by the screeching noises of every day life.  And the colors are so vibrant and emotive -- there's the grit of an at first unidentifiable foot scraping in the yellow sand, the blue bathhouse that steams Joe's soul, and the tones of the rain.  Ramsay has always been able to convey discomfort through color (who could forget the red curtain scene from We Need to Talk About Kevin where Tilda Swinton was swathed in a hot, red-lidded haze?).

The film is elevated by Ramsay's second collaboration with composer Jonny Greenwood.  Greenwood has always been able to depict an assault of senses via percussive strings, but there are scenes here that are undeniably made better because of his musicality.  A particularly visually stunning underwater scene is made heartbreaking thanks to Greenwood's score.  This soundtrack seems far worthier of an Oscar nom, given Greenwood's range from lyrical to Penderecki-like, able to encompass both the beauty and the overwhelming tumult of Joe's mind.

Other than a few scenes, it's hard to get much out of Joe despite Phoenix's as always incredible acting.  You want more of a connection between him and the girl he's rescuing for most of the movie.  But she's so understandably remote, you're neither sure of his motivation or their relationship.  And despite all that happens in the movie, this chapter seems very much like a small blip in the ongoing noise of Joe's soul.

You Were Never Really Here ultimately has less to say than something like Scorsese's thematically similar Taxi Driver, but is worth it because of the energy of Ramsay and Phoenix's first-time collaboration, bottling something both visually and cinematically firework-like.

When you're told that you're going to experience a "horse and boy" story, a basic structure comes to mind a la Black Stallion or Secretariat or maybe National Velvet.  Lean on Pete is none of those - lacking in sentimentality, although full in devastating beauty - it's less a story about a racehorse with a final chance on glory and more on life's transience for its "boy" Charley Thompson (Charlie Plummer).

Charley Thompson is a waifish highschooler who looks pretty enough to be Elle Fanning's brother, and although his father (Travis Fimmel) is kind, he isn't exactly a model paternal figure.  Cue the entrance of a crotchety old horse trainer (Steve Buscemi), a motherly weathered horse jockey (Chloe Sevigny), and a fading racehorse called "Lean on Pete" or just Pete for short.  If this sounds like the makings of a coming of age equine story, you'd be right, but Lean on Pete takes a completely different track in its narrative about a boy that's trying to find some permanence in his increasingly unstable life.

Director Andrew Haigh's previous feature 45 Years was another brutally passive and artistically lovely film that deftly handled its characters.  As his first American film, it was difficult to see how this English director would accurately portray the Pacific Northwest with accuracy and sensitivity.  For four months before the start of filming, Haigh spent time with the book's author Willy Vlautin getting acquainted with the local racetracks and the landscape of Oregon's people, motels, and diners.  However, it's not just the time that Haigh spent here that gives authenticity to his work, but his directing style that is able to observe without glamour.  These aren't the racetracks we're used to seeing on film, nor the gruff exteriors hiding mallowy hearts of gold.  Several times we can't help but expect a sort of Disney turnaround with the fortunes of Charley and his horse, but we rarely see that happen.

Like the horse he befriends, Charley is a runner, and there is a theme of constant change and movement throughout the movie.  It's not a long stretch to imagine that Charley wants to provide for Pete what he has been lacking in his own life while at the same time needing the horse to fill that same vacancy.  Whether through circumstances or through his choice, Charley is always on the run, and yet constantly searching for a place and for people to stay.  Pete and Charley are both passive ciphers, as Charley is able to tell his fears and his hopes to Pete.  Rarely elsewhere do we see Charley lay his thoughts to words, even when he is probed about his mother or his past.  And although there are several searching glances Charley gives himself in the mirror throughout the movie, he is often someone who is merely reacting to the events around him.  However, despite being a life full of hard knocks, the film manages to be hopeful in the light of its realization that life is not all that you want it to be.

Part of this is achieved through the cinematography of Magnus Nordenhoff Jonck, which is able to capture both the natural beauty of Oregon's wilderness while emphasizing the vastness of it.  Unlike a western where the breadth of the frame makes the world feel bold and like an adventure to conquer, Charley looks dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the space around him.  Plummer handles the role with subtlety, which is why the film is as strong as it is in its silences.  Lean on Pete needs that strong anchor to hold the story, which takes a dramatic shift in what could be termed separate acts even while its character merely drifts.

It's vital to have "outsiders" take a look at other cultures and give their viewpoint.  Their outlook may be flawed, or it may serve to give new eyes to a situation we have become jaded to.  Whatever the case, directors like Haigh are to be valued because above all they try to serve the truth with their work.  There's no lack of love in the people that inhabit Lean on Pete, but the tragedy of their lack of action for each other can probably best be summed up by Charley's father's words: "Sorry I can't give you more".