In 'Reformed', it was a radicalized priest by Ethan Hawke. In 'Taxi Driver', it was Travis Bickle played by Robert DeNiro. The Card Counter struggles with the 'moral weight occurred by past actions that can never be removed'. Shrader has a through line in his films with a middle-aged male protagonist alone in a room with his darkest thoughts and secrets, which they scribbled down in a journal or notebook, with images of loneliness and angst punctuated by voiceovers. Paul Shrader is most known as the screenwriter from 'Taxi Driver', but in the last decade he's established himself as an indie director.
