Strictly average movie

Disturbing yet enthralling

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

TJ lost his mother. His father Paul (Rainn Wilson) is despondent. They're living in his grandmother (Piper Laurie)'s home. He breaks a window bringing the cops to a construction sign where Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is squatting. Hesher is displaced and decides to squat in the family's garage. Nicole (Natalie Portman) rescues TJ from school bully Dustin.There is a lot of bitterness and despondency. Gordon-Levitt is great as the anarchist character. There is some humor. There are some poignant moments. It is not sentimental or a standard comedy. This is more like the anarchist Hesher, willing to burn everything down. It's an unique character and I like every one of the adult actors. The little kid isn't the most charismatic.

TJ (Devin Brochu) is a thirteen year old kid, who a few months after losing his mom in car wreck, is riding his bike through a housing development when he crashes and in his anger throws a rock through a window. This summons the long haired, tattooed, heavy metal listening, Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Who was squatting in the house TJ through the rock into. After this point Hesher will not leave poor little TJ and his family alone. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was great as the title role, not his best acting job which is "The Lookout", but pretty damn close. From the moment Hesher entered the frame I knew I was going to be watching one crazy ass movie. Now the film never tells us one thing about Hesher, but I thought in doing that it created more of a character that stands out on the screen.Devin Brochu is truly a remarkable kid actor. He has the on-screen presence that most kid actors lack. There are scenes where TJ is being bullied, and they happen to be the worst scenes in the film. Its not because of Brochu it's because of the teenage actor who played the bully, all of his dialogue was absolutely awful, and plus the kid was very pale and reminded me of the movie "Powder" but with spiky red hair.Natalie Portman who plays Nicole, a clerk at a local supermarket that saves TJ from the bully. Portman is great at playing the weird, awkward, indie girl and it shines through in this movie. She also helped produced the movie, so if it wasn't for her, "Hesher" might not have been.Rainn Wilson plays Paul, TJ's father. Paul is depressed and has not changed his clothes or left the couch since he lost his wife. Wilson gives the best performance of his acting career. Every scene that Wilson was in he stole it. Im not going to give anything away, but there is a scene when Paul is arguing with TJ and he has a moment of self-realization, and it was heartbreaking. This is Spencer Susser's first feature film, in which he co-wrote and directed and he could not have done any better, well maybe just writing the dialogue for the bully a little bit better. But other than that, "Hesher" is one hell of an entertaining movie. I give "Hesher" an 8.5 out of 10

Hesher is fun to watch with some comical and touching scenes. All the actors perform very well, especially Devon Brochu, the young man at the center of the film and especially Piper Laurie as his grandmother. Gordon-Levitt's character's actions are funny but confusing: They're inconsistent with reality, well beyond plausibility. Unless there are no police in the subject area of California one cannot understand how Hesher continues to exist. Yet the film is not comical, surrealistic or forgiving enough to overcome such exaggeration. But by applying an undeserved suspension of reality the acting fused with the comic -and sometimes poignant- scenes will pull you in. If you're like me, merely finishing a film on Netflix assigns it merit. Pretentious Spencer Susser got lucky. Hesher is not the insightful masterpiece he may think it is, though it succeeds for other reasons.

Unbelievable and poorly written, Spencer Susser's "Hesher" stars the always watchable Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a long haired slacker who enters the life of a young kid whose mother has recently died. The film was co-produced by actress Natalie Portman, who has a bit part.Don't be fooled by "Hesher" grunge and grime. This is "Mary Poppins" as filtered through indie conventions, Susser turning Joseph Gordon-Levitt into a foul mouthed squatter who magically appears and rescues a poor kid from depression. "Even if you lose one ball, you still have another," Hesher teaches us, an "always look on the bright side of life" message which is in keeping with the film's hokey, disguised sentimentality.Both Portman and Gordon-Levitt are watchable, but their characters don't convince as real people. They're characters "in quotes", more a collection of gimmicks than avatars of real human behaviour.5/10 - Worth one viewing.