Joe (You Were Never Really Here)

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“

If she's there, I'll get her back.

— Joe

”

A mentally disturbed veteran of both the Army and the FBI, Joe works in New York City as a hitman and bounty hunter who specializes in rescuing girls from traffickers. His time in the underworld has made him paranoid, and Joe stops doing business with partners if he suspects they could give up where he lives, a small home in the city with his mother. It’s hinted through short flash backs that he and his mother were victims of domestic violence.

One day, Joe is offered an immensely lucrative job working for State Senator Albert Votto, who begs him to rescue his daughter, Nina, from a high-class brothel frequented by wealthy clients. Tracking the address Votto sent to him, Joe storms the brothel, killing the guards and several patrons, before rescuing Nina and bringing her to a nearby hotel to wait for Votto. Seeing a news report confirming Votto killed himself earlier that night, Joe is given little time to react before two police officers arrive, take Nina, and try to murder Joe, but he manages to overpower one of the cops and escape.

On the run, Joe discovers that agents working for the traffickers have killed all of his contacts in an attempt to get to him, and he races home to find two men have broken in and killed his mother. In a fit of rage and grief, he kills one man and mortally wounds the other, who explains that the Governor is behind the trafficking, and Nina was "his favorite". Contemplating suicide after burying his mother, Joe resolves to rescue Nina instead. Joe sneaks into the Governor's mansion, killing the guards, but arrives in time to see that Nina has killed the Governor herself, and the two go on the run, resolving to live a better life than the one New York has given them.