...John "Rocky/Karate Kid" Avildsen's breakthrough feature "Joe" propelled two hitherto unknown actors, Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon, onto the path to fame and fortune along with Mr. Avildsen, all the while creating a remarkably telling snapshot of the American psyche at a dangerous nadir.
Indeed, the film enjoyed serious attention and financial success for a low-budget effort, mostly by dint of serendipitous release shortly after the Kent State shooting and the attendant protests, as well as a few other germane incidents that I'll leave to the few who may read this to discover, which is when I first saw it, freshly minted from high school. Exposure in magazines like Playboy didn't hurt, either. Retrospective viewing, though responsive to the film's timely, emotional impact, still reveals the clunkiness of a risibly Oscar-nominated screenplay. Said script evinces every brief moment of its purported eight day creation in a number of suspect plot devices: Joe putting two and two together via unlikely headlines and news broadcasts and Bill bringing his entire purloined stash to the hippie pad being the most egregious examples. Likewise, the dialogue runs the gamut from embarrassing cliché to occasional brilliance, but overall feels a bit too forced to be quite genuine. The film is overtly, painfully political, an O. Henryesque morality play transcribed for the dawning of the Seventies and seasoned with a generous helping of product placement masquerading as picaresque realism, a harbinger of developing trends.
Perhaps this (and despite its flaws) is what makes "Joe" so much fun to watch, and why I give it a higher-than-it-deserves rating. Its blatant polarization and core pessimism make it as relevant now as it was over four decades ago. It taps a bellicose and resentful nerve that's hard to ignore.
Indeed, the film enjoyed serious attention and financial success for a low-budget effort, mostly by dint of serendipitous release shortly after the Kent State shooting and the attendant protests, as well as a few other germane incidents that I'll leave to the few who may read this to discover, which is when I first saw it, freshly minted from high school. Exposure in magazines like Playboy didn't hurt, either. Retrospective viewing, though responsive to the film's timely, emotional impact, still reveals the clunkiness of a risibly Oscar-nominated screenplay. Said script evinces every brief moment of its purported eight day creation in a number of suspect plot devices: Joe putting two and two together via unlikely headlines and news broadcasts and Bill bringing his entire purloined stash to the hippie pad being the most egregious examples. Likewise, the dialogue runs the gamut from embarrassing cliché to occasional brilliance, but overall feels a bit too forced to be quite genuine. The film is overtly, painfully political, an O. Henryesque morality play transcribed for the dawning of the Seventies and seasoned with a generous helping of product placement masquerading as picaresque realism, a harbinger of developing trends.
Perhaps this (and despite its flaws) is what makes "Joe" so much fun to watch, and why I give it a higher-than-it-deserves rating. Its blatant polarization and core pessimism make it as relevant now as it was over four decades ago. It taps a bellicose and resentful nerve that's hard to ignore.