Joe- Movie Review by Frank L.

Director: David Gordon Green
Writers: Larry Brown (based on the novel by), Gary Hawkins
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Gary Poulter

The title character Joe (Nicolas Cage), as an ex-convict, has managed to create an existence for himself as the employer of casual labour to clear scrub so the land can be used for more productive purposes. He has a good relationship with his men who are a collection of odd balls who are even lower down the commercial ladder than Joe. There are no luxuries in this world. He pays a fair wage for the work they do and on days where the rain prevents work he pays an agreed fee so he is at a loss not his workers. His obsessions are his dog, alcohol and occasional visits to the local brothel.

What irks him are society’s laws which require him to behave in a way which he finds alien even those laws which everyone is required to observe while travelling on the public highway. Any whiff of authority imposing its will on Joe triggers his mega- short temper; his fists fly as he takes on hated authority in a heedless flash of anger and violence which can only make his initial infringement a far more serious problem. He is incapable of learning.

On the land where his gang of workers are clearing scrub, he is approached by a young guy Gary (Tye Sheridan) who is looking for work to help support his alcoholic mother and young sister who is strangely mute. This is a deeply dysfunctional family who are scarcely surviving. The father is played by one Gary Poulter whose film debut performance this is. In fact he has never acted before. He gives an impressive performance as an alcoholic of a particular selfish nastiness which repeatedly shocks and makes you feel protective towards Gary as he tries to negotiate an existence freed from this destructive alcoholic. The opening scene as Gary talks, with his back to the camera, to this ogre introduces this unsatisfactory relationship between father and son in a manner which arrests the viewer’s attention.

Notwithstanding his ability to keep his business going Joe continues to get into destructive scrapes with the law. However he and Gary gradually develop a bond and to Gary he becomes a father- like figure in stark contrast to his father who at all times fails to show that he has any paternalistic qualities of any worth. The society in which all the characters live is not far from one where to eke out a living and survive is to succeed. Ambitions are not set high. Joe is therefore the only person in Gary’s life who has any worth.

The story is not wholesome but the performances of Cage, Sheridan and Poulter are such that it metamorphoses into a fine tale of affection and respect which Joe and Gary have for each other. The relationship somehow manages to transcend, the random violence and economic grimness against which it is told. A serious film.