Joe the King

Joe the King
Directed by	Frank Whaley
Written by	Frank Whaley
Produced by	Jennifer Dewis Scott Macaulay Lindsay Marx Robin O'Hara
Starring	Noah Fleiss Karen Young Camryn Manheim Austin Pendleton John Leguizamo Ethan Hawke Val Kilmer
Distributed by	Trimark Pictures
Release date	January 22, 1999 (1999-01-22)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Joe the King is a 1999 drama film, written and directed by Frank Whaley, based largely on his own childhood and the childhood of his brother. It stars Noah Fleiss, Val Kilmer, Karen Young, Ethan Hawke, John Leguizamo, Austin Pendleton, Camryn Manheim, Max Ligosh, and James Costa. The film premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, where it won Whaley the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award (tied with Guinevere) and a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize. It also got a nomination for the Open Palm Award from the Gotham Awards. Noah Fleiss also received a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Feature Film.

Plot

The story takes place in Upstate New York during the 1970s. Joe Henry, 14, is in an abusive household. His father Bob is a raging, violent alcoholic, while his mother Theresa feels too stressed to pay attention to him and lives in fear of her husband's wrath. His brother Mike, about a year older, is normal and friendly but offers no affirmative guidance, mostly ignoring Joe as he does not want the association of Joe's natural uncoolness (as well as the rest of his family) ruining his attempts to get into the "in" crowd. Joe is taunted by his classmates and hassled by people his father owes money to. To make matters worse, Bob one night goes off the deep end and smashes all of Theresa's records. When Joe comes home from work to discover this, Henry tells him Bob was triggered by finding condoms in Theresa's purse, implying she secretly works as a prostitute to earn additional income for the family, which would also explain her absence from the house for most of the day.

In response to economic pressure, Joe takes a full-time job after school at a nearby diner, leaving him tired and even less able to keep up with class work. Because he is underage, he works there illegally, resulting in the owners exploiting him for underpaid labor and treating him poorly. His co-worker Jorge is the only person there who treats him with any kindness and frequently sticks up for him. Failing in school, Joe is assigned a guidance counselor named Leonard Coles, who is incompetent though reasonably friendly. For example, when Joe starts to talk about his problems in their first session, Leonard unthinkingly shuts him off.

Throughout the movie, Joe is engages in petty theft (shoplifting from stores, breaking into cars to lift items inside or stealing from mailboxes) to raise money to pay off his dad's debts and replace his mother's records. Due to his family's poverty and likely going hungry most days, Joe is often seen stealing food from the diner to feed himself and his brother. This reaches its climax when nearing the end of his shift one night, Joe learns from Jorge, who decides to leave early, that two of his bosses (the couple Jerry and Mary) living in the apartment directly above the diner are gone for the weekend. This presents Joe an opportunity to rob the diner of the money he needs.

After his shift, he sneaks in through an upstairs window and ransacks the apartment, looking for a locked metal box that was previously shown to contain a large quantity of cash. Joe finds the box but then catches a glimpse of himself in a doorway mirror. Horrified at what he has become, he kicks the mirror in and badly cuts his leg. Though injured, he escapes before another one of his bosses, an older man named Roy who is drunkenly making his way back to the apartment to retrieve his house keys, can catch him.

The next day, as Joe arrives at the diner to start his shift, Jorge smokes outside and stares at Joe suspiciously, then proceeds to angrily inform Joe that he knows Joe who broke into the diner and stole the money. Sticking up for Joe as usual, however, he says he will tell no one that Joe was responsible. Jorge then tells him to not worry about getting caught, as Jerry and Mary believe Mary's ex-husband was responsible and Roy, being so inebriated that night, thought Joe was a giant rat running past him and knocked him down the stairs. Jorge tells Joe to leave and never return to avoid suspicion.

Using the stolen money, Joe buys brand new copies of Theresa's records destroyed by Bob and stores them in a space beneath his house with an enveloped note for his mother. Joe's plan ultimately goes south when he tells of his deed to his friend Ray, who tells Leonard that Joe works at the diner, prompting a concerned Leonard to call the diner and speak to Jerry. Coles threatens to report Jerry and the others for illegally employing Joe if they don't cease doing so immediately. Jerry complies, but then after Leonard unwittingly reveals to him that Joe injured himself while working there by cutting his leg, Jerry deduces that Joe committed the robbery and calls the police.

Joe is subsequently arrested and sentenced to a juvenile detention center for six months. Later, as Bob drives Joe to the bus bound for the center, the father uncharacteristically offers Joe his condolences and advice about not making poor decisions in life and ending up a loser like Bob. Joe exits the car. Bob offers Joe a ride but his son chooses to take the bus. Bob tells Joe that he loves him, stunning his son. Joe boards the bus. The film ends with Joe walking down the hallway of the detention center with a look of grave uncertainty on his face.

Production

Whaley used French New Wave films as main models, especially The 400 Blows.

Leguizamo, who was also the executive producer, filmed his scenes for three days between Staten Island and the Broadway theater where his one-man show Freak was being staged.

Cast

• Noah Fleiss as Joe Henry
• Max Ligosh as Mike Henry, Joe's older brother
• Val Kilmer as Bob Henry, Joe's father
• Karen Young as Theresa Henry, Joe's mother
• James Costa as Ray
• John Leguizamo as Jorge
• Ethan Hawke as Leonard Coles
• Richard Bright as Roy
• Robert Whaley as Jerry
• Amy Wright as Mary
• Camryn Manheim as Mrs. Basil

External links

• Joe the King at IMDb
• Joe the King at AllMovie
• Joe the King at Rotten Tomatoes
• The entire film officially posted by Frank Whaley on Vimeo
• Trailer