On J List of Movie Reviews

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Joe (1970)

Rate: 9
Viewed: 9/21

Joe
9/21: Predating Taxi Driver by six years, Joe is a powerful film about the generational gap with a horrifying end result.

The first thirty minutes is slow: a typical hippie spat with the girl's parents getting in the way. But when Peter Boyle finally makes his on-screen appearance in the bar as the king of bigots, the movie begins to take off.

As a result, Peter Boyle should've earned an Oscar nomination; some of the stuff his character says is brilliant and relevant today. It's hard to tell if Peter is in a leading or a supporting role; to me, it feels like half-half.

A tough, racist working-class character, Joe is way over to the right while the hippies are far to the left. In the middle is the girl's father who's susceptible in swinging to either way. It depends on who can influence him more. The way Joe talks, he makes sense on one level and can be arresting but shows a lot of bigotry and unwillingness to adapt to the changing culture. As a result, there are some awkward scenes, but Dennis Patrick has done an excellent job of making them work by politely acquiescing to his viewpoints.

Had Joe been alive today and seen what's transpiring nowadays, he'll have a heart attack out of shock. To solve the problem, Joe will kill millions of people, and by doing so, he'll turn into a hypocrite because to be an American is to exercise the right to live freely in a democratic society. That's something Joe never got in 1970 in spite of his stupid slogan: HONOR AMERICA.

The film was a huge box-office hit: taking in $26 million against a budget of mere $106,000. Only Norman Wexler, a debuting screenwriter, received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He also did Serpico with Waldo Salt of Midnight Cowboy fame and Saturday Night Fever. Sporting an extensive history of bipolar behavior, Norman Wexler was once arrested for threatening to shoot President Richard Nixon.

Susan Sarandon makes her feature film debut before going on to have a long career in acting. Peter Boyle has always played fringe characters but gives the performance of his career in Joe. Interestingly, he would appear in Taxi Driver as Wizard and give Travis Bickle some advice about life. Talk about two nutjobs in the same room.

All in all, when people think of Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider, they should also include Joe.