Customer Reviews

My Name Is Joe [Region 2]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cripes, but this is one bleak, beautiful movie. Plot is a recovering Scottish alcoholic house painting soccer coach, while pursuing a budding romance with a social worker, finds himself taking on the responsibility of one of his drug-addicted soccer charges who owes money to a local gang boss.

This is drama in its highest form. This is a movie on par with the greatest moral dramas the cinema has ever produced (On The Waterfront, The Lost Weekend, etc).

Okay, its bleak, but don't go into this expecting some utterly incomprehensible European mess -the characters in this are readily accessible blue collar `joes' with realistic problems, and when they are being good you get a warm feeling, and when they connect you want to cheer, and by golly, when they fail you are as shattered as if it was you or someone you know on the screen. The characters do speak with a heavy Scot accent, but I really wish I could've turned the subtitles off - I felt like somebody somewhere assumed I wouldn't understand it, and with the crutch of subtitles I really have no hope of attempting to (and they're a little distracting from the screen when perhaps they don't even need to be there).

Peter Mullan's performance as Joe was the very best of that year - how the American Academy passed over this film is God's own wonder. It is a heartbreaking masterpiece.

Ken Loach has done it again. This uncompromising story of an out-of-work alcoholic in Glasgow combines all the best elements of Loach's previous work (Raining Stones, Ladybird, Ladybird): social realism, intense, immediate acting, naturalistic cinematography by the great Barry Ackroyd. Peter Mullan is magnificent as the hapless wanna-be-good Joe, juggling his flirtations with Sarah (Louise Goodal) with his desire to help his friend Liam (David McKay) get out of his problems with the local drug dealer. Some American critics took issue with the film's major dramatic turn, as Joe, trying to fix things for Liam, opts to work for Glasgow's major drug dealer. Stupid. Just stupid. The film climactic final moments are the best half hour of sustained drama that I have ever seen. Ken Loach, here in his later years, is still at the top of his form, proving that he's not gone the namby-pamby way of some other British directors. Recommended without reservation.

My Name is Joe is not only a realistic portrayal of everyday life but it also achieves a certain amount of optimism in the audience. The acting is superb - Mullen as Joe is fantastic and it can't be long before he begins to take the British film scene by storm. Ken Loach's directing is not only innovative but extremely rewarding for the viewer, and My Name is Joe promises future success for this director. The film is a gritty, thought-provoking drama which does not feel the need to have a Hollywood-esque 'happy' ending. A truly enjoyable film. I would recommend it to all.

As an avid movie-goer and self proclaimed movie critic, I rate all the movies I see with 1-4 stars. My Name is Joe gets 5! This potrayal of an alcoholic in the early stages of recovery is the most accurate I have ever seen. (I myself am a recovering alcoholic.) But Joe is not the only character you will care about. The dialouge in the early scenes is inspired and will made me laugh out loud. (It's a good thing the movie's subtitled, though, because the heavy Scottish accents make it yard for us Yanks to understand.) The movie skillfully moves from light comedy to intense drama. The sets are refreshingly realistic and the players are (thankfully) not all beautiful. Peter Mullan deserved his best actor selection at Cannes for his portryal of a well-meaning man with feet of clay. Don't miss this movie, it's filmmaking at its best.

I expected this to be good. I was still surprised by how good it was. However, it's bleak, bleak, bleak. It's a black comedy in the same vein Delicatessen is a black comedy-- you'll laugh, but don't rent this on the same day you buy a new package of razor blades. The acting is some of the best deadpan I've seen in years, and it works-- the parallel between Sabine, the junkie, and life in a dead Scottish town is a little too in-the-face at times, but it's still handled with sharp-tongued wit throughout. The camerawork is somewhat uninspiring, but we should be used to that in things coming out of the British Isles these days. Besides, it doesn't have to be good. The characters carry this one. But prepare to be depressed, and you'll want to keep away from sharp objects during the last ten minutes.

All the reviewers here on Amazon have it right. The acting is spectacular. It's an eerie sense that you are spying on the lives of these people. The movie does start out on a fun theme and takes a serious turn - but that was the point. It's a common literary/cinematic theme for a decent man to help out a troubled friend and then set off a worse chain of events. From what I've read about Loach, he specializes in portraying the pitfalls of the underclass and of institutions - I am happy that he does not do it in this film with a heavy hand or with cheap shots. This film handles it magnificently.

Here is an interesting tidbit for you: The supporting actress, Lorraine McIntosh is (was) a wonderful singer in a Scottish pop band called Deacon Blue. Check them out!

Peter Mullan, who barely had a chance to mumble two lines in the over-blown "Braveheart," creates a gritty, angry character under Ken Loach's precise direction.

If cool, rumbling Scots like Shawn Connery or cheeky, frenetic ones like Ewen MacGregor are your cup of tea -- it's going to get spilled with Mullan's intense anti-hero.

"My Name is Joe" is so Scottish, Loach had to sub-title it so Yanks like myself could catch the words in the deep Glasgow brogues.

The story unfolds in a Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, only unlike so many shmalzy Hollywood drunken/druggie films, this one starts AFTER the character has paid his dues, sobered up and is attempting to find the sunny side of life in gloomy Glasgow where unemployment and drug abuse is some of the highest in the UK. Along the way, Joe (Mullan), meets a social worker, who he falls in love with despite their disparate pasts and he must save a friend from area thugs.

All in all the movie is an excellent look at a character who has fallen from the straight and narrow and now, forgoing forgiveness or penance, only wants to get back on it and on with his life.

Pain. Redemption. Addiction. Sacrifice. Recovery. Death. Money. Life. Sex. Love. Rage. Unemployment. Crime. Honor.

This film has it all, one of the most powerful stories I've ever seen with "real" people, not stereotypical cutouts so beloved by lazy filmmakers and studio suits. The story chronicles the struggles of "Joe," a recovering alcoholic as he attempts to crawl back out of Hell and into honesty, hope, love, honor, daylight. It's not a pretty film in the sense of being "...and they all lived happily ever after," but hope shines the brighter for a darker setting. (The Scots brogue of the actors is so thick, subtitles are a necessity, not an affectation. Without them, I'd understand probably one word in 10. Maybe 20.) The film shines for never taking the easy way out, never going for that ... plastic "feel good" resolution, but never descending into "more angst-ridden-than-thou," either.

Contrary to the right-wing crap espoused in the Houston, TX review, this work underscores the very raison d'etre of a Loach film - good, solid, honorable, decent working-class lives, brutalized by the horrors of international capitalism - the horrific choices they face each day, in pursuit of food, shelter, companionship and self-respect, and the oft tragic costs meted out to them, for these basic necessities of every-day life. If you come out of the theater having witnessed a Loach film, and still hold any fond thoughts for Reagan, Thatcher or Bush, you weren't watching the screen ! Excellent, hard-wrought movie ...again...and again...

wow, am i surprised to find this movie on here. no one knows about this movie (at least in america). it's set in scotland and i think it has subtitles even though the characters speak english, so you can understand what they're saying. this movie is totally amazing. i'll never forget it. it's probably the most real romance i've ever seen.. the guy is a charming, poor, recovering addict who falls in love with an ordinary, caring social worker. but there's a problem.. joe needs money, and he can get it from his ex-dealer. to get it, he'll have to do just one drug deal... but is it that simple? and how does it affect his romance with his new love? this movie is so touching and not the gushy romantic garbage you're likely to find at the theater. yes you might have to buy it on VHS instead of DVD, but buy it anyway. it might be a movie you'll never forget.