Joe - Die Rache ist sein

This is one of the darkest, bleakest films I have seen in a long time. All characters, without any exception, are unhappy souls, surviving in a grim world, unable to improve their lives, prone to an almost genetically determined urge to mess things up.

The image of rural America this film paints, is almost like that of a third world country. Most men have a cigarette in one hand and a bottle in the other. Dysfunctional families live in decaying shacks, without money or food. Violent dogs are barking everywhere. Disagreements are settled by fistfights or, in some cases, by bullets. The only community centres are a grocery store and a whorehouse. Homeless people are killed for a few dollars and a bottle of liquor.

The central character is Joe, an outstanding role from Nicolas Cage. He is a loner, living on the edge of society, earning a living by poisoning trees so that they can be removed legally. He hires workers on a daily basis, one of them being a 15 year old kid who regularly gets beaten up by his alcoholic father. They get to like each other, but when the boy seeks Joe's protection, things get out of hand.

The main characteristic of the film is the gloomy atmosphere, emphasizing the desolate hopelessness. The cinematography is stark and bare, with only the soundtrack adding some effect. The acting is very effective. Above all the part of the boy's father is worth mentioning. It is played by a local homeless man, who apparently died a few weeks after shooting was finished.

Some reviewers compared 'Joe' tot 'Mud'. An obvious similarity is Tye Sheridan, who plays the same sort of role in both films, as a young kid who befriends an older man. But to me, 'Joe' had much more in common with 'Winter's Bone'. This film was also set in rural America, with Jennifer Lawrence as a teenager trying to keep her dignity in a world of violence and dysfunctional families.

Joe was well-received in its American premiere at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. David Gordon Green's film, based on Larry Brown's novel, was filmed locally in the Austin-area. The film is dark, brooding, intense and most of all depressing. The story about a local lumber foreman – Joe - who tries to rescue a 15-year-old drifter with an abusive alcoholic father is violent and disturbing and one knows from the start that there is no way for it to really end well. I found the film a little too dark and a little too slow as it moves to what seems like an inevitable bitter end. I think it could use some editing to speed the pace a bit. The acting by Nicholas Cage as the foreman and young Tye Sheridan – fresh off of his success in Mud alongside Matthew McConaughey – are excellent. In a way, it reverses the characters in Mud where Tye Sheridan's character is trying to rescue the older man; in Joe, the situation is the other way around. The film is hard to watch at times and difficult to call enjoyable, but the story is still powerful. It is difficult to imagine that such a dark film will attain much cinematic success. Green often casts locals in his film. In a sad, but perhaps appropriate corollary, the Green cast a local homeless man, Gary Poulter, to play the important role of the alcoholic father. Poulter died on the streets of Austin two months after the end of the filming. It is a powerful film, but I doubt I will ever want to watch it again.

'An ex-con, who is the unlikeliest of role models, meets a 15-year-old boy and is faced with the choice of redemption or ruin.'

It is hard to describe life. Stories about mermaids fighting wars in different galaxies, that is easy to describe; but writing about life, sometimes all you can say is, 'It's about life'

Joe is a story about a place, a place most people might not be able to conceive: where things are dying, where people survive off liquor and cigarettes, where those who are supposed to love us drive knives into our backs.

Joe (Nicholas Cage) runs a small foresting outfit poisoning weak trees so the land can be replanted with sturdy pine. A troubled life, past, Joe moves from bottle to bottle and day to day, but when he gives a young man named Gary (Tye Sheridan star of the movie 'Mud') a job, the bond they form brings direction into each of their lives. Joe is compelled to help Gary out of the pit dug by his drunk father.

Director David Gordon Green of Prince Avalanche and Snow Angels and Pineapple Express can pretty much cut on all sides of drama. I think the mark of a great Director is you hardly notice he is there. Like Prince Avalance and Snow Angels, the movie's scenes blended so well with the story and characters.

Nicolas Cage is good when he is bad and good when he is good, so, no point in dwelling on him. It's worth watching this movie just to see him.

Tye Sheridan hasn't been acting long, but god damn, he has been in some good movies and he showed a lot of range in this flick, portraying an abused and scared and strong young man.

If you know David Gordon Green, you don't need convincing to see this movie. If you like Cage or Sheridan, you probably will check it out to see them.

Green likes to show certain things: scenes that might not be a part of the story, but add so much to the story in general, the way a writer might prelude a chapter by describing something connected to, but not in line with the characters. Joe has a feel, you can sense it and I was getting a little shaky half way through.

I know places and people, some that might pass for the world in 'Joe'. I have seen people drink themselves evil. I have seen young people fall apart because of those around them. But, I guess there is always the chance of coming out, and surviving, if you keep up the fight.

From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them.

in the end, Joe is a movie about people. I finished this film, thinking, 'There are people out there suffering and I can do something to help them.'

David Gordon Green, who's versatile career has swung from the sublime ('Snow Angels' & 'Undertow) to the completely absurd ('Pineapple Express' & 'Your Highness'), has swung back once again with this adaptation of Larry Brown's bleak novel, 'Joe'. The thriller follows the lives of country drifters surviving on the fringes of modern America's mid-west. The title character, played by Nicolas Cage, is a man with a troubled past and a short temper that has found a respectable - if teetering - balance in life. When he hires a young drifter, played by Tye Sheridan ('The Tree of Life' / 'Mud') as a day-laborer and tries to take the boy under his wing, that balance begins to tip when the boy's vagabond father becomes jealous of his income and his friendship with Joe. This is a film about fighting against your own nature and, though his more serious roles are often overshadowed by his over-the-top gonzo-ness, this is, by far, Cage's most subtle success to date. Don't worry though, he still gives the camera 'crazy-eyes' at least once.

There's a quote about midway through David Gordon Green's Joe that I believe is crucial to understanding the film's thematic core. Forgive me if I'm paraphrasing but it goes something like 'These men have no more frontiers'. The line is in reference to the men Joe works with and in many ways applies to the titular character himself. Joe is a man that knows he is stuck; he has no where to go because his surroundings can't let him. Even though he thinks five steps ahead of the average man it is only delaying the inevitable. The conflict of the story however is not whether or not Joe lives but if he can save the future of a promising child, named Gary.

Joe is the kind of film that proves that a small story can be much more meaningful than a larger one. This kind of unsentimental character piece needs a small tight focus so all of the nuances of said characters shines through. Thankfully David Gordon Green understands this; his approach to directing the film is subtle and organic, allowing the actors to shine first and foremost. There are some understated flourishes and several instances of visual poetry but for the most part Green keeps things taut and unsentimental. He wants the audience to be immersed in the volatile world Gary and Joe inhabit.

And what a convincing world it is. Green's depiction of Southern lower class Americana is unsentimental, austere and straightforward. The film doesn't feel the need to overemphasize aspects of these characters live. Nothing is glamorized, nothing romanticized; the film aims for a hard hitting depiction of the character's world which only serves to further highlight the core conflict. Green understands that the audience needs to understand how close Gary and his sister are to harm and in doing so has crafted a thoroughly realized community teeming with details and nuances.

But the real centerpiece of the film is it's acting; three performances in particular stick out. Cage's Joe, Sheridan's Gary and Gary Poulter's Wade. Cage's depiction of Joe is not quite the subdued performance many critics made it out to be. Instead it is a silent colossus of a performance. One of Cage's biggest strengths as an actor is the ability to convey a character's thought process without saying a word. He makes a perfect fit for Joe; a man who is always moving, thinking, never given to slowing down. He is a frank straightforward man and Cage does the character justice. Equally excellent is Sheridan's Gary. Coming off his sterling performance in Mud, Sheridan proves himself one of the most promising actors of the younger generation. He brings balances both the character's more mature and intelligent feelings and ambitions with a raw, primal rage that surfaces in a truly explosive manner. Finally we have Gary Poulter, the dark horse of this movie. A non-actor Poulter was hired due to his similarity to the character he was portraying. And boy does he nail it. Seething with a kind of disheveled rage, imbued with a selfish nostalgic anger for a time he had a future; Wade is a truly terrifying character only made more terrifying by Poulter's raw, thoroughly convincing performance. If Joe is symbolizes a man in societal stagnation, Wade is that stagnation taken to it's logical, horrific end.

Joe is a gritty, hard movie about gritty hard people but it's also intelligent, heartfelt and riveting from the first frame to the last. It solidifies the comeback for David Gordon Green as a unique presence in American cinema and hopefully is a sign that Cage will do more of these kinds of austere, gripping character pieces more often in the future.

9/10