I think what's most impressive about John G. Avildsen's Joe is that it doesn't devolve into an exploitation picture in the last act. It could have very easily been some hippie-sploitation shlock picture ending with them getting brutally gunned down by the protagonists. But Avildsen had bigger fish to fry. The little violence seems toned down, more brutal and sudden than gory and exploitative. Joe is a sincere thriller when it didn't need to be. Note its nervous use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound and music: music that seems to literally comment on the action cuts out with the close of a door or a jump cut. It really drives home the idea that the music is all in the titular character's head. One would think that the violent climax would be the most shocking and intense, but I found the scene where Joe and his wife are visited by the accidental hippie-killer and his wife superior.
8/10
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