Joaquin Phoenix

Well I would like to start out by saying happy birthday to one of my favorite actors of all time, Ms. Julia Roberts.  She turns 44 today.  I was going to review one of her movies, but I know that I would be far to bias in my review.  I just love her work, and she can do no wrong in my book.  Ok, sorry about that.  Now onto our other actor celebrating a birthday today.

Joaquin Phoenix in Buffalo Soldiers 
Photo courtesy of http://www.allstarpics.net/0618313/012003184/buffalo-soldiers-2001-pic.html

Happy birthday to the man who "quit" acting, Joaquin Phoenix.  He turns 37 today.  I chose to do a movie that it seems no one knows about.  It's called Buffalo Soldiers and was made in 2001.  No, it has nothing to do with Bob Marley's song of the same name.  It's actually about Ray Elwood (Phoenix) who runs a black market for everything and anything, including homemade heroin (scandalous!), and his struggle with a Sgt. Lee whom they call "Top" (played by Scott Glenn).  Anna Paquin plays Phoenix's love interest who is also Glenn's daughter.
On with the movie.  I just don't know where to start with this movie.  The storyline was different and interesting, but the added romance was unnecessary.  The storyline also got became a little difficult to follow at times, but it was overall interesting.
The acting on the other hand...  It was painful to watch.  I thought that Phoenix was suppose to be a good actor, but I guess I was wrong.  Granted he did have some good scenes but those were sparse.
I wanted to like this movie, but I found it hard to like it.  Phoenix character was undeveloped, along with everyone else's characters, and the ending to the movie was a little hard to believe.  And with that, I raise my lighter to light the candles on Joaquin's cake.

I give this movie 1 ½ cakes out of 5.  It could have been 2 ½ cakes but the bad acting by Anna Paquin and others became distracting and brought this movie down.