Unusual film about a man who befriends his social opposite out of fear of blackmail. Peter Boyle makes this film with his foul mouthed boorish portrayal of a working class stiff "Joe" in love with the past and fearful of the future and worried about the present. The first half hour of the show features the film debut of a young Susan Sarrandon as Melissa Compton, a weak willed rich girl who slums with her loser boyfriend, replete with a full nude scene. Her boyfriend is the film's weak spot, a poorly portrayed drug addict and dealer who meets his demise following Sarrandon's overdose. We meet Boyle's Joe in a bar as he spouts off and rants about minorities, crime, hippies and drugs, and it is easy to see that the later Norman Lear television character of Archie Bunker is based on a cleaned up version of Joe. The comparison even carries over into Joe's wife and personal life and pastimes. Joe insinuates himself into the life of Bill Compton, Melissa's father, and the two make an unlikely pair as they search for Melissa who has run away from drug treatment and back to the drug addicts she calls friends. Their search leads them to an "oar-gee" as Joe calls it, a free love fest fueled by drugs a lot of nudity and surprisingly, uptight Bill Compton and Ultra Conservative Joe both join in. They get robbed and this leads to a violent and murderous ending that foreshadows the stark and chilling ending to Taxi Driver six years later. Joe is a funny film that on the surface at least, is anti violence and anti racist. Yet the film's main character, Joe, becomes the very instrument of the upheaval he fears when he enters and joins in the illegal and unbridled sexual excesses he rants against. So in that respect, the film falls short of being a powerful message and leaves you wondering what the final outcome really was all about.
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