Those who've watched movies for many years are aware that Nicholas Cage is fully capable of acting ... it's just that he does it so rarely. He usually prefers to chew the scenery, a thing for which he's often very well paid. It's probably easier than real acting too. But occasionally he does put in the effort, and we get a movie like this one. "Joe" (Cage) is a pretty ordinary guy. He lives somewhere in the Southern U.S., running his own small business, and most of the time manages to keep his rage issues under control. But when he hires and eventually befriends a young man (Tye Sheridan) who's sometimes beaten by his alcoholic father, things get a little messy.

Not exactly a ray-of-sunshine movie (although there's some hope), it's well acted and a decent character study.