Joe (2013)

Drama

Director: David Gordon Green
Writers: Gary Hawkins, Larry Brown
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Gary Poulter, Ronnie Gene Blevins

"A tale from the bowels of Texas."

Nicolas Cage finally with a performance worth watching, one of his career's best.

He plays the title character, a hard luck alcoholic ex-con who works as a foreman for a logging company in a small rural community in Texas. When Gary, played by Tye Sheridan (Mud), a 15-year-old kid with an abusive no-good father, comes asking for a job, he decides to help the young man and a bond forms between the two, as Joe gets involved in Gary's family troubles.

With director David Gordon Green (Prince Avalanche, Pineapple Express) brilliantly mixing naturalism with stylization, and some pretty impressive performances from both Cage and young Sheridan, but also from a lot of non-actor locals - Gary's father, for example, is played by a homeless man picked off the streets of Austin, who sadly died after filming wrapped - Joe is one of those films that will rattle around in your head for days.

Plot summary from IMDb: In order to provide for his destitute family of drifters, a likable, sincere, able-bodied 15-year-old boy comes to hire on among a burned-out ex-con's group of aging forest laborers. As the man becomes more and more aware of the boy's abusive home life, his deeply buried humanity is roused. Drinking and smoking incessantly to remain detached from his volatile temper, he finally takes the matter into his own hands - come what may - when the boy's alcoholic father finally goes too far.

Awards: 4 wins & 12 nominations.
Runtime: 117 min
R