Review of The Joe Show (2014) by Ben L — 16 Jan 2015

I'm not a big fan of documentaries, because the style of most of them feels like one long news story, which fails to get me engaged. However one of my favorite podcasters was a producer on this film, so I decided to watch The Joe Show when it aired on cable.

It's an out-of-this-world story about a controversial sheriff who has created a media persona for himself that keeps him in the minds of the voters and so he keeps getting elected. It's out of this world what lengths he goes to in order to make a name for himself, bending and stretching the laws perhaps to the breaking point.

It actually is the ideal subject for a documentary because some of the things he does are so radical that you'd think it must be scripted. It was a very well-structured story, and while the film-makers did show the dark side of Joe's career, they never seemed to be taking a side on the issues.

I certainly wasn't bored while watching The Joe Show, but since it's a documentary I also wasn't particularly excited by it either. If you like to see just how far someone can go with an agenda and a position of power this movie is an interesting one to watch.