{8.5 stars}
I've never been a huge Nicholas Cage fan, but he really won me over with his memorable performance as Joe, a tough but paradoxically sensitive, hard-drinking, lonely, childless, and at times, it seems, clairvoyant ex-con who runs a small forestry service and gives a good shake to anyone who looks him in the eye and works hard. Tye Sheridan is similarly good as Gary, a stalwart 15-year-old with an abusive alcoholic father who comes to work for Joe and unexpectedly finds a surrogate father in him. There is an interesting alter-ego effect between Joe and Gary's father, Wade "G-Daawg," who, interestingly, was convincingly played by Gary Poulter, a homeless man who died on the streets of Austin a couple of months after JOE's filming was complete.
There have been a lot of comments about how depressing and "slow" JOE is, and it's definitely not the thing to see if you're in the mood for something fun and uplifting or something with tons of thrills and action. It's a slow-burner with a quietly hypnotic plot and a mildly explosive--and very moving--ending. While it's not quite on the level of 1996's Oscar-winning SLING BLADE, it's reminiscent of that film, with a similarly believable anti-hero as its central character. Though JOE is understandably not for all tastes, the realism is undeniable: This is the sort of stuff that really happens and the kind of people who really exist.
I've never been a huge Nicholas Cage fan, but he really won me over with his memorable performance as Joe, a tough but paradoxically sensitive, hard-drinking, lonely, childless, and at times, it seems, clairvoyant ex-con who runs a small forestry service and gives a good shake to anyone who looks him in the eye and works hard. Tye Sheridan is similarly good as Gary, a stalwart 15-year-old with an abusive alcoholic father who comes to work for Joe and unexpectedly finds a surrogate father in him. There is an interesting alter-ego effect between Joe and Gary's father, Wade "G-Daawg," who, interestingly, was convincingly played by Gary Poulter, a homeless man who died on the streets of Austin a couple of months after JOE's filming was complete.
There have been a lot of comments about how depressing and "slow" JOE is, and it's definitely not the thing to see if you're in the mood for something fun and uplifting or something with tons of thrills and action. It's a slow-burner with a quietly hypnotic plot and a mildly explosive--and very moving--ending. While it's not quite on the level of 1996's Oscar-winning SLING BLADE, it's reminiscent of that film, with a similarly believable anti-hero as its central character. Though JOE is understandably not for all tastes, the realism is undeniable: This is the sort of stuff that really happens and the kind of people who really exist.