Joe

 

KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL. After his daughter (Susan Sarandon in her first screen role) overdoses on heroin, wealthy NY businessman Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick) confronts her drug dealer boyfriend in a rage and accidentally murders him. Stunned, he retreats to a nearby bar and finds himself confessing his crime to a stranger: the charismatic yet deeply bigoted blue-collar factory worker Joe (a remarkable Peter Boyle). When the hippy-hating Joe discovers his new friend is telling the truth, he begins to ingratiate himself into Compton's life, and despite their vastly different backgrounds the two men find themselves developing a rapport based around their shared fear and disdain of the counter culture, an uneasy alliance that will eventually have devastating consequences. Directed by John G Avildsen (Rocky) from a typically trenchant Norman Wexler (Saturday Night Fever, Serpico) screenplay, Joe ruthlessly exposes the dark heart of American society in a shocking, darkly satirical depiction of the fierce cultural battleground of the USA at the beginning of the 1970s, and the violent death of the hippy dream.