Watch Joe For Free

Thanks for the memories!

Really Surprised!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

asks Susan Sarandon (Melissa) of her father Dennis Patrick (Bill) after she overhears him discussing that he has killed her drug-dealer boyfriend Patrick McDermott (Frank). She goes on the run in the hippie communes of New York and Patrick goes in search of her with his new buddy Peter Boyle (Joe). Boyle is a racist bigot who admires Patrick for taking out a hippie. He wants to do the same.It's a hard-hitting film because of the ending. At the beginning, I didn't mind the killing of McDermott because he was such an awful person. There is no excuse for selling people drugs that aren't actually drugs. It's the sort of thing that gives drug-dealers a bad name. So, when he is killed, we feel for Patrick's character and hope he can get away with it. When we meet Boyle, his character is so unappealing that I found him funny and I enjoyed the friendship that formed between him and Patrick. Indeed, it becomes a sort of buddy-buddy movie especially once they go into the hippie world of drugs and orgies. It's great watching them join in and get involved. And they enjoy it. The film has many funny moments as we follow them on their journey.However, just as at the film's beginning with the drug dealer, the hippies are portrayed as nasty characters who steal and cheat and pimp out their girls. This is what ultimately leads to the powerful end sequence where Boyle and Patrick take things into their own hands. Are they so unjustified in their actions? Well, maybe they go a little too far but I suspect that what we find so offensive about this film isn't the opinions of Boyle's character. It's the fact that we are secretly on his side and we don't want to admit it.I don't have a bad opinion of hippies and certainly not in the context of the times. I do, however, have a problem with drug dealers who rip you off and the stealing vermin who are portrayed in this film. Is Boyle doing mankind a service?

I've really enjoyed Peter Boyle's performances over the years from Frankenstein's monster in "Young Frankenstein" to Ray Romano's prickly father on "Everybody Loves Raymond." It was hard at first because my first memory of him is this movie where he goes berserk and inflicts damage on children. As we go into the Trump era, I can see lots of this happening in the future. I hope I'm wrong. This is a case where a devastated man does a terrible thing, but doesn't really realize what he has unleashed. Boyle is a simmering mess who acts on his emotions, not in a controlled, civilized way. I'm sure there were people who hated the counter-culture, and cheered when Dennis Hopper got shot off his motorcycle, but vigilantism is deplorable. Let's remember who the victims were. This is a powerful movie, but it should teach us a lesson.

A Film that could be Made Today with Slight Variations. The Power of this Product, Tapping into the Zeitgeist of the Late Sixties, Few Films Exhibit the Realism of Character and Setting so Profoundly and Accurately.Herman Wexler's Script is Excellent and Peter Boyle's "Joe" was so Realistic and Disturbing, as is the whole Production, that the Movie was Rejected by the Public's Consciousness and the Emotional Pain it Caused and Pushed it to the Fringes in some sort of "Denial" akin to Trauma, Blotted Out for Self Preservation.The Movie is Surprisingly Minimalist in Style, Drawing its Power from the Great Acting all around with Characters that Literally Come Alive on the Screen.Timeless in its Message of Social/Economic/Political Divide, it is a Chilling "Bad Trip". Once Seen, cannot be Forgotten. To call this Dated is Absolutely Inaccurate.Mesmerizing Low-Budget Movie that Hits all the Right Notes, even the Music is Contemporaneously "Right On" and not Cringe Inducing like most Hollywood Productions of the Time that were Clueless.This Great Film is the Closest You can get to Time Travel and Places the Viewer in 1970 America with Verisimilitude. No Easy Task. One of the Best Films to Capture the Ugliness that was this Time when it was "Changing".Note...Susan Sarandon's Film Debut.

The 1970 classic "Joe" owes a lot to the performances of its leading actors, especially Peter Boyle in his star-making turn in the title role. Joe is a blue collar bigot; he's actually pretty democratic about it, as he seems to hate all those who are "different" equally. He makes the acquaintance of Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick), a well-off advertising executive who's just accidentally killed the drug pushing boyfriend (Patrick McDermott) of his young daughter Melissa (Susan Sarandon, in her film debut). Joe figures out that Bill is a killer, but even armed with this knowledge, he doesn't exactly blackmail Bill. Rather, he thinks he's found a kindred spirit, somebody who despises hippies as much as he does. The result is an uneasy sort of relationship that forms the crux of the movie, as it develops. Bill isn't as angry a man as Joe, but he does find him to be an interesting individual.The way that a few separate worlds, and worldviews, collide, makes for good entertainment in this effort from screenwriter Norman Wexler and director John G. Avildsen. The generation gap provides further conflict, and seeing Joe and Bill eventually immerse themselves in the hippie universe is no less than fascinating. (The two of them do so as a means of searching for Melissa, who's run away.) They try to prove to each other how well they can adapt to this kind of lifestyle, including taking hits from a bong. Naturally, it isn't long before Joe is reminded of just how much he loathes hippies when he and Bill are robbed, and he spurs the increasingly distressed Bill on to a violent revenge - and a devastating conclusion.Described in many reviews here as an even more volatile version of Archie Bunker, Boyles' Joe is a true force of nature, and the actor is so good in the role that he basically makes the movie. The other actors (such as Audrey Caire as Bills' wife and K. Callan as Joes' wife) are fine, and Boyle and Patrick do work well together.A film very much of its time, "Joe" is a well paced drama that is definitely worth a viewing. It's likely to stick in peoples' minds after it's over.Eight out of 10.