Joe Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Joe Blu-ray Movie Review

Muddy.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 18, 2014

Somewhere on the somewhat long and winding road between his Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and such mainstream fare as National Treasure 1 & 2, Nicolas Cage became first a joke and then (in what can only be considered a logical outcome in this web-based world in which we live) an internet meme. Cage’s ubiquity in a glut of midlevel if occasionally fairly interesting films (The Frozen Ground) has only made the actor easier to make fun of, so much so that one of the stand up contestants on Comedy Central’s new @ Midnight brought the house down when a CraigsList ad was shown asking for experienced actors to appear in an independent film featuring naked people in a hot tub full of melted chocolate, and the comedian “answered” the ad by stating “I’ll appear in this or anything. N. Cage.” It can therefore be a bit hard to separate the snark from the performer, but it’s obvious that Joe is meant to be something of a comeback for Cage. While Cage actually provides a lot of the interest in Joe, the film itself is fairly derivative and predictable.

There’s an odd concatenation of the name Gary associated with Joe, funnily enough. The film features a screenplay by Gary Hawkins (adapting a novel by Larry Brown), and one of the two main characters is a kid named Gary (Tye Sheridan). However, chances are if you’ve heard of Joe at all, it’s due to another Gary, Gary Poulter, who plays the father of Sheridan’s character in the film, a desperate and often vicious alcoholic named Wade. Poulter himself suffered from a lifetime of homelessness and substance abuse and evidently there was understandable trepidation about casting him in his first feature film role. Poulter apparently made it through the shoot without any real problems, but was found dead shortly thereafter in a camp for homeless people in Texas. Poulter’s death made headlines, especially on sites like Gawker, and ironically helped to elevate Joe’s profile, albeit tragically so.

Anyone looking for a massively detailed plot is probably going to come away from Joe feeling at least somewhat disappointed. This film is in essence a character study, a “three hander” of sorts focusing on the titular Joe Ransom (Nicolas Cage), an emotionally unbalanced man with a sullied past who manages to scrape together a living by poisoning scrub in an unnamed Texas backwater in preparation for planting more valuable pine seedlings. The other two characters in the focal trio are Gary and Gary’s father Wade, both of whom fall in with Joe. The film actually starts with a bristling scene between Gary and Wade on a deserted train track, where Gary is berating Wade for some recent peccadillo, saying this time’s he’s really in trouble. Gary gets a firm smack across the jaw for his trouble, but soon it’s Wade’s turn to receive a beating when two guys show up and begin pummeling him as Gary takes off alone down the tracks. It’s a dour and depressing start to what is frankly a rather oppressive viewing experience.

Part of what had added to the joke Nicolas Cage has become in some quarters is his weird combination of surfer dude patois with bursts of hyperbolism, and both the character of Joe and Joe in general suffer from this same tonal inconsistency. Joe at its core is a story of two lost souls—Joe and Gary—finding each other and navigating through both their roiling emotions and external events together, with a number of threatening elements converging from the outside, including Wade and another low life named Willie (Ronnie Gene Blevins). But evidently encouraged by director David Gordon Green, several of the cast indulge in histrionics that seem to be fueled by an improvisational spirit (this is backed up by some information gleaned from the featurettes included on this Blu-ray). Ironically, it’s the non- professional actors like Poulter who come out best in this gambit, while Cage, admittedly gritty and almost psychotic at times in his role, just seems slightly silly at times.

It’s difficult if not well nigh impossible to watch Joe without thinking of another recent Southern Gothic film that helped to reinvigorate the career of one of its stars, the almost criminally underrated Mud with Matthew McConaughey. This similarity stems probably at least in part from the featured roles Tye Sheridan had in each film, but even forsaking that connection, while Mud is a decidedly less oppressive experience (which is not to say it’s uplifting by any means), both films have a certain similarity of overall mood, with a hapless youth attempting to navigate his way through both family dysfunction and the world at large. Mud benefited from a much more tightly wound screenplay and a firmer directorial hand, however, and the kind of lackadaisical quality that wafts through Joe is one of that film’s chief annoyances.

There is some salvation in Joe, albeit in small doses and doses that arrive rather late in the story. There's no denying the power of Cage's rumpled, slightly off kilter take on his character, but the ironic thing is its probably Sheridan and especially Poulter who will remain firmly etched in most viewers' minds long after Joe has faded into the blistering Texas sunset.

Joe Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Joe is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Shot digitally (with the Arri Alexa system), Joe benefits from the autumnal or downright wintry ambience that Gordon and DP Tim Orr capture in their excellent use of location work. Sunlight glints low on the horizon, erupting in flares through barren tree limbs, adding a kind of melancholy to the proceedings that only echoes the turmoil that the three central characters are experiencing. This is not a colorful film in any meaningful way. The palette here is often gray or brown, with only brief dollops of hue—things like a checkered flannel shirt, for instance—providing relief from the almost oppressive drabness. Fine detail is quite good throughout this presentation, and despite the fact that a lot of the film takes place in very dark environments, shadow detail is crisp for the most part and there are no issues with noise or other compression artifacts.

Joe Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Joe's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix offers some excellent ambient environmental noise that flows quite well through the surrounds, including things like a torrential rain downpour or even the occasional bursts of gunfire which erupt on a couple of occasions in the film. The evocative score also is nicely splayed throughout the surrounds, creating a cocoon of sorts that envelops the listener. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and the track exhibits no problems of any kind.

Joe Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director David Gordon Green, Composer David Wingo and Actor Brian D. Mays. First of all, kudos to whomever decided to include a composer on a commentary track, something that's done far too seldom (to my particular tastes, anyway). This is a nicely done commentary that provides quite a bit of information on the shoot, including some moving reminiscences about Poulter.


• The Making of Joe (1080p; 11:15) is a standard EPK with interviews and scenes from the film.


• The Long Gravel Drive: The Origins of Joe (1080p; 15:55) is a somewhat more interesting piece concentrating on the adaptive process screenwriter Gary Hawkins undertook to transfer Larry Moore's novel to the screen.


• Deleted Scenes:

  Wade Black Widow (1080p; 00:57)

  Wade and Willie Full Scene (1080p; 1:49)

Joe Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Joe has admirable if not exactly noble intentions, but it's so relentlessly dour and then so oddly, weirdly almost funny at times due to some of the hysterical goings on that there's nothing other than that inherent oddness to keep the viewer hooked. Gordon perhaps gave his actors a bit too much rope here, and if they haven't hanged themselves, they at least have caused a bit of bruising along the way. Still, there's a rugged sylvan beauty—albeit dilapidated beauty—to Joe, and that includes some of the performances, including an unforgettable Poulter. With caveats in mind, and a realization that the technical merits of this Blu-ray are by and large outstanding, Joe comes Recommended.