Review of Joe (2014) by John F — 06 Aug 2014

"Joe" is a film that came out this year (2014) featuring Nicolas Cage. It's about a man who runs a work crew that poisons trees so they can be cut down and replaced. I never really fully understood why they do this, the movie implied that it was some kind of legal technicality involving wilderness preservation... the main character, the titular "Joe" (played by Cage), said, "The lumber company can only cut down the trees if they're already dead. So we come out here and make sure that they are." Sounds somewhat shady to me.

Anyway, Joe is a responsible but tortured man. He provides well for his labor crew, shepherding them like a flock of sheep and providing a rod if they stray. But on the flip side, he is almost always shown drinking directly from a bottle of booze and smoking a cigarette, and he frequently visits a house of ill repute to consort with women of the night. It's also demonstrated in the film that he's an ex-con with anger management issues. And the film gives Joe no shortage of people to push his buttons. Most of them deserve the righteous fury that Joe unleashes, except perhaps one four legged individual who was only trying to defend his territory. I felt sorry for that German Shepherd. :(.

The primary thrust of the film is that Joe hires a young boy by the name of Gary to help him poison trees. Gary has an irresponsible craphead of a Dad who was played by an actual homeless man. His Dad PREFERS to be homeless, royally screwing up the job opportunity Joe gives him on purpose, and engages in various forms of violence and domestic abuse. Poor Gary is really just trying to keep his family together and protect his mother and sister from his horrible Dad. Throughout the film, Joe becomes Gary's mentor and father figure, providing a sense of justice and stability that his real father never did. This arouses a form of jealousy in his real father, and I won't spoil the end of the film, but things quickly come to a head and Joe is eventually forced to unleash his rage once again.

I have to say the acting in this film was excellent for all participants. I know that Nicolas Cage is kind of an "Internet joke" these days, but this is more of a "Leaving Las Vegas" Nicolas Cage instead of a "Wicker Man" Nicolas Cage. The only faults I could give it are that it tends to drag a bit at times, and there are moments in the film where the character's thoughts are narrated almost like a voice over, spelling out what they are thinking and feeling instead of showing us. It seems like an overly direct, artsy-fartsy, pseudo-intellectual means to get the film's message across. But perhaps I'm being too picky. Overall I give the film a hearty "thumbs up," and rate it four stars out of five.