Joe *** (2013, Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan) – Movie Review

Nicolas Cage profitably goes back to his indie roots as an ex-con called Joe, oddly enough, who provides the unlikeliest of role models when he meets and hires a keen, eager-beaver 15-year-old boy named Gary (Tye Sheridan) for work. Faced with the choice of redemption or ruin, Cage befriends the kid.

David Gordon Green’s gritty Southern drama is an excellent movie, dark, dangerous and disturbing, and psychologically true. Cage and the kid give very fine performances indeed. It’s Cage’s best work for some while.

Green’s film, based on the novel by Larry Brown, is very much son of Mud (2012), which also cast Sheridan with a middle aged man.

Joe and Cage then are very good, but not quite as good as Mud and its star Matthew McConaughey. And Sheridan is very good too, but not quite as good as he was in Mud. This is mainly because, while Mud was startlingly fresh, Joe has a familiar air about it. It’s not at all stale, but just slightly not quite fresh, like we’ve been told this story before.

Nevertheless, it’s a first-class little indie movie, a credit to Green, Cage and Sheridan, who should get together again someday soon.

Producer and director David Gordon Green is known for George Washington (2000), All the Real Girls (2003), Pineapple Express (2008) and Prince Avalanche (2013).

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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