Joe
Director: John G. Avildsen
Year Released: 1970
Rating: 2.0
Dated time capsule from Vietnam-era America (with the counter-culture in full swing and Nixon Hate continuing) has bourgeois Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick) enacting revenge against his messed-up daughter's boyfriend (the daughter played by a very young Susan Sarandon), then forming a contrived alliance with a blue collar, gun-toting factory worker (Peter Boyle). Avildsen depicts all 'hippies' as promiscuous, unemployed drug-users and the 'older generation' as crazed conservative zealots (and hypocrites), and that final standoff with Patrick and Boyle raiding a 'commune' (after indulging in drugs and having sex with significantly younger woman) is sheer ugliness. At the core, there's some truth in all this - about generation gaps and class division - but it's covered with so many layers of paranoia and black and white hysteria it's hard to dig to get to it.
