‘There’s nothing I can do and I hate it...’
David Gordon Green is mainly known for two things: his stoner comedies and his controversial and inconsistent Halloween reboots. Smack bang in the middle of those two bookends came Joe. A film that has elements of comedy but is more of a drama. It is also a film that deserves more recognition…
Joe (Nicholas Cage) is an ex-con with a lot of repressed rage who runs his own modest tree-felling business. Joe takes Gary (Tye Sheridan) under his wing. The latter is a 15-year-old boy with a piece of shit, abusive father (Gary Poulter). This leads to tension in the small town in which they live.
Any mention of Cage and repressed rage brings to mind his more ridiculous roles, but this is genuinely not one of them. While there are a couple of classic Cage moments, both of which are hilarious and enjoyable, Joe is a film that plays it straight. Sheridan, who is consistently great in everything he appears, makes for a likeable and sympathetic foil to Cage’s more grizzled and haunted elder. Together they share an authenticity and warmth that is a testament to both actors’ natural charisma. Elsewhere, Poulter is suitably loathsome, in a performance made all the remarkable by the fact that he wasn’t a professional actor (he died on the streets of Austin two months after filming wrapped), but for all intents and purposes, this is a two-hander between Cage and Sheridan.
Joe is unlike anything else that David Gordon Green has done, it might also be his best film. Stripped of the need to include gags or kill scenes, this film allows Green to speak a truth that his other works never quite have.
A quietly touching film that once again confirms how good an actor Nicholas Cage is.