Truly Dreadful Film

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I can remember when the movie JOE came out. I was 13 at the time and fueled by the counter culture movement that all of us in our pre-teens and teens were involved in. We all though the clothing and choices we made were our own and not part of some systemic norm we would be forced to take part in. Little did everyone realize that by assuming the same clothing, same attitudes and same quotes we were doing little more than every generation before us by revolting against our elders. It wasn't something new and it wasn't something individual. It was just something different.JOE take those differences and adds the twist of violence to the story. It opens with a young couple Frank (Patrick McDermott) is a drug dealer in the seedier side of New York City. Melissa (Susan Sarandon) is a spoiled daughter of a successful white collar couple who has fallen from Frank. The two feed off of one another, Frank the attention he gets and Melissa the love she thinks she has for him. After Frank gives Melissa some pills while they're out before heading off to sell drugs, she trips out in a drugstore whose owner calls the EMS to take her to a hospital.Melissa's parents Bill (Dennis Patrick) and Joan (Audrey Caire) show up and plan on taking her home once she's released. Bill goes to her apartment to pick up her things when he runs into Frank. His disdain for Frank is on full display and Frank goads him on insulting him and his family. In response Bill attacks him and in the process accidentally kills him. Leaving behind a few of his drugs and taking the rest to dispose of he leaves the building and heads to the nearest bar for a drink.It is at the bar he chooses that he runs into Joe (Peter Boyle). Joe is a blue collar worker and stereotypical of those at the time. He hates taxes, his kids, blacks, foreigners and hippies equally. He talks non-stop about all of them and how much he hates them to the chagrin of the bar owner. When he says he wishes he could kill a hippie Bill responds with "I just did". Joe looks at him to see how serious he was and then the two laugh thinking it was all a joke.The next night Joe sees the news talking about the death of Frank and the search for the killer. Realizing Bill was telling the truth he calls him and wants to meet. Joe has no intention of blackmailing Bill. Instead he thinks of them as kindred spirits, brothers in arms and a friend, something we get the impression he has none of. The pair drink and talk and Bill loosens up deciding he likes this breath of fresh air unlike the backstabbing suck ups he works with in advertising.Joe invites Bill and his wife to dinner and Bill accepts. It goes smoothly but the man on edge at all times is Joe. He seems ready to jump at any moment. When they finish eating he takes Bill downstairs to show him his gun collection. He calls Joan down and attempts to calm her down and tell her she has nothing to worry about.But worry she will when Melissa escapes from the hospital after finding out Frank is dead. Overhearing a conversation between her parents when they return home from their dinner, she now knows who killed Frank and runs away.Joe contacts Bill to ask where he's been to find that Bill has been combing the streets searching for Melissa. Offering to help the pair take to the seedier side of NYC and begin their search. Their journey through the coffee houses and macrobiotic restaurants where they're ridiculed by the hippies leads them to a group that makes fun of them. Learning Bill has drugs their attitude changes.The unlikely group parties and gets wasted, has sex and then part of them take off with the drugs. Joe forces one of the remaining girls to tell them where they went and she lets them know. Guns in his trunk he and Bill head out to find them and get back the drugs and discover what happened to Melissa.This may seem like a lengthy synopsis filled with potential spoilers but not really. It provides the bare bones but not the meat that is wrapped around them. The story itself holds your attention and the performances on hand, especially by that of Boyle (a breakout performance it turns out) make this movie one that holds your attention, even if he doesn't show until 30 minutes or so in.Made in 1970 what makes the movie even more interesting is looking back on the story and the culture war going on at the time. The movie depicts three separate categories of people here who all seem more alike than different. Bill and Joan represent the white collar workers, Joe the blue collar and Melissa and her friends the hippy generation. Where the hippies claim individuality and independence they show none of it, all dressing alike, using the same comments and buying products to make be part of the group. It's the same thing that people like Bill are hired to promote and make money from. Looking back we can see that now and realize it better than at the time the movie was released.All three feel trapped in their own environments. Bill by the boring mundane life he must work to live the lifestyle he's chosen, Joe in the daily grind working at the steel mill and feeling trapped by people who have more while doing less and Melissa and her friends who work just as hard selling drugs in order to pay for the things they want. None of the three groups realizes they are the same as each claims only theirs is the real thing.When the movie was released it was considered quite controversial. It drew a lot of attention and discussion among movie goers. Some saw Joe as a hero and others as a villain. In truth he is both. But he is also us, the everyman out there. The movie was also a pivotal film for its director John G. Avildsen who three years later directed the critically acclaimed SAVE THE TIGER which won Jack Lemmon an Oscar for best actor and who six years later directed a small film called ROCKY.The film is being released on blu-ray by Olive Films so fans can now have the cleanest looking copy of it they've ever had the chance to own. Extras are limited to the trailer but it's the movie itself that is worth picking a copy of this up for. By the time the screen credits roll you'll be stunned, you'll be thinking about what group you fit in and you'll realize how talented an actor Boyle actually was.

"Joe" is the kind of film that Hollywood certainly doesn't make anymore. It's bleak and challenging, with an ending that comes as a slap in the face. If you want to see a movie like this these days, you have to try hard to find one.It's about two men who have nothing in common except for hatred. They take that hatred to its logical conclusion. It is likely that the screenwriters had seen "Easy Rider"; the bleakness of both pictures' endings is similar. In "Joe", however, you're not with the hippies: you're watching them from the outside in, through the eyes of two people who would never be accepted as one of their kind: a rabidly racist working stiff and a stuffy executive.The movie is worth watching for Peter Boyle in the title role. This is a disturbing role, but I am not surprised that some audience members cheered his performance back in the day. Boyle is a natural in roles like this, and watching this movie, I couldn't help but think that if Joe were around today, he'd be voting for a certain billionaire in the next election.

If nothing else - It was so plain to see that 1970's "Joe" (an all-American, redneck flag-waver?) was a clear blueprint for 1976's "Taxi Driver". Yep. With just a few variations on the theme, these 2 films were almost identical in the nature of their story-lines.And, just like Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle character, the character of Joe Curran in this production was hardly an interesting enough person for this twisted tale to base its entire plot-line on the likes of him and his blindly hateful actions.In one way "Joe" could, very likely, be looked upon as being a disgruntled viewer's step-by-step guide on how to deal with the annoyance of a generation gap, especially when it comes to dealing with hippies.Yeah. And what better way to get those despicable hippies to co-operate with you, than to aim a loaded rifle right at their heads. (Hey! Talk about "flower power", man!) Anyway - "Joe" (now 45 years old) was a very dated picture. And any relevance that it may seem to hold for today's audiences hangs very precariously by a single thread.*Note* - "Joe" was directed by film-maker John Avildsen who (six years later) would triumphantly go on to direct "Rocky" in 1976.

An odd thing about the movie is that no one comes off very sympathetically. That goes for life styles as well, whether working class, upper class, or hedonistic hippie. Everyone's compartmentalized and disdainful of non-peers. Of course, the movie's crux lies in working class Joe's (Boyle) alliance with white-collar Bill (Patrick) over their mutual hatred of hippies. And that's following Bill's pivotal murder of his daughter's drug dealer boyfriend.The movie was much talked about at the time. After all, the hippie movement was widely seen and heard on America's airways, but not so working class America's reaction. For guys like Joe, it seemed everybody was making social progress except for working class white males. Plus, pot-smoking kids were doing things that beer swilling blue-collar guys could only dream about—free time, free sex, few responsibilities. Worse, these kids were insulting the nation's traditions, the very ones that afforded them the luxuries they enjoy. The movie may exaggerate some, but the nub of Joe's hatred of those he thinks are ruining the country is on the mark. (Then too, I suspect a similar sentiment lives on in today's Tea Party, though not as pronounced.) The movie also suggests the potential of a broader cross- class reaction. Significantly, Joe's working class anger eventually spreads to white-collar Bill, as together they make war on what they see as a youthful parasitic class. To me, the movie's really about the emerging crisis of the Vietnam era, concerning not only who will shape the nation's present, but its future as well. Now, after 50-years, the hippie movement may have vanished, but the animus against minorities and others regarded as not fully American remains a potent force. The movie may have aged, but this aspect hasn't. In passing-- note in the movie how the feminist movement has yet to have impact. Thus uppity women are not included in Joe's long list of cultural evildoers. Still, it's entertaining to wonder how Joe and especially his dutiful wife would react to housewives desiring more options.The movie itself has a number of memorable scenes. I especially like it when our two crusaders guzzle booze while denouncing pot-smoking kids. Then too, Joe's barroom tirade came at a time when audiences were not used to such uncensored explicitness as gutter obscenities and hateful ethnic slurs. Thus Boyle's fiercely delivered rant was spellbinding at the time, and I suspect still is. But most of all is that subtle sequence of Joe and Mary Lou (Callan) sharing an awkward evening with their social betters Bill and Joan (Caire). What a masterpiece of staging, scripting and performance. It's almost wrenching to watch the two wives try to deal with the class barriers separating them once they've been thrown unceremoniously together. Caire is especially meaningful as she betrays hardly a hint of what she's really thinking, while the eager Mary Lou does her best to please. Yet every time the housewifely hostess does something agreeable, Joe steps on it with an uncaring remark. Comparisons with TV's Edith Bunker and All in the Family (1971-1979) do hit the mark.It's easy to deride Joe's unabashed vulgarity. Still, he's always straightforward about what he thinks. No guess-work there, unlike the white-collar guy who plays up to him once he thinks Joe's going to be his new boss. Plus, Joe works hard at a demanding foundry job. In short, he's that average joe who does the sometimes dirty work that keeps the nation running. In that key regard he deserves respect, maybe not for everything he thinks, but surely for what he does. And maybe if hard working guys like him got more respect for what they do, they wouldn't be so ready to take frustrations out on others. To me, that's one of the most important issues raised in a movie that's as relevant today as 50-years ago when I first saw it.