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Harsh Power. Technically Joe is not on a par with Bonnie. Norman Wexler has written a tough, sure script, but the cast offers only one first-rate actor, Peter Boyle. The others are not much more than typecast foils for Joe's brutality, and when Director John Avildsen allows his camera to linger on them too long they tend to deteriorate into caricature. Even Joe is sometimes overdrawn: he does not need to burp every time he takes a swig of beer. But Avildsen maintains a generally crisp pace, and Boyle more than compensates for the inadequacies around him. He obviously has studied early Marlon Brando movies with laudable results: he performs with as much harsh power as the young Brando ever did, and he is funnier than Brando could ever hope to be.
Beyond Boyle's superb performance, the most striking aspect of Joe is the film's essential honesty. Though the characters seem stereotypical, they are nonetheless real. Joe is no stock cops-v.-flower-children exploitive enterprise. Compton's daughter is not a free spirit but a trapped head with an Electra complex. Her boy friend is a cruel, indifferent junkie who peddles pills to teenyboppers.
One of the film's more bitter ironies is that Compton might have avoided ultimate tragedy by merely surrendering and standing trial. A lot of Joes sit in jury boxes these days.