not great, not terrible

Rating: 6/10 (5 October 2019)

I'll start by saying for the most part I enjoyed the movie; it is entertaining and Joaquin's performance, as always, impeccable.
But as I much as I enjoyed him laughing and dancing its way into, possibly, an oscar nomination, I found that everything else kind of falls apart and the movie simply doesn't have much to hold it together.
If you take away the actors performances you're left with a pretty bad attempt at recreating some of Scorsese's finest works.
It is uncanny to see how much it tries to resemble Taxi Driver, but ultimately doesn't manage to live up to it and falls short of becoming an iconic movie.
It also tries to be a social commentary, but I am not going into much details. Short answer is: I think it is a rather childish approach and a bit embarrassing to try and squeeze conflict into 2 hours and then simplify the problem to the point that you no longer understand where it started or what is the issue, but find yourself sympathizing with the angry mob.
To conclude: it is fun, but there is where the praise ends for me. Overall is is predictable, cliched, doesn't really know what it wants to be and ultimately you leave the theatre thinking: was that it ?