WHERE'S JOE BUCK? - OR MIDNIGHT COWBOY FOR THE UNINITIATED...

“The only x-rated film to win an Oscar®!” this film proudly professes in its trailer. And it’s probably true… No original story about how I got round to this I’m afraid… I was rooting around, I watched the trailer and thought: “X-rated with Oscar®? Dustin Hoffman?? Hang about, I’ve heard of this one… Ok let’s watch this today then…” I still have the film’s main musical theme “Everybody’s talking at me” going around in my head, that song really speaks to my state of mind at the moment (at the moment I write this post, not necessarily the day I post it… Ok it speaks to my state of mind at the beginning of March 2011 =)). As for the film? I’ve been telling ALL my friends to watch it…
Meet Joe Buck (the Oscar® winning actor Jon Voight) unless you have already met him… He’s a Texan, fresh off the bus to New York and he’s “one hell of a stud!” He has a plan, as do a lot of people who arrive at the Big Apple with their eyes full of stars. He has heard that “rich broads” pay good money for sex in New York. Now, “loving” is just about all he has felt he has been any good for all his life, so here he is. Ready for “action”, and to get rich quick… However the big city ain’t what he thought it would be. Even asking directions is an issue, much less finding the kind of business he’s looking for… Fate has it he crosses paths with Enrico Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) who seems like the first friendly face Joe has seen in New York but who is in actual fact a crippled short-con artist who survives thanks to petty theft and similar antics in a condemned building with no electricity. Rizzo rips Joe off well and good but later takes pity on him… The two will become friends and Joe at least has a friend to rely on as he mulls over his surprisingly traumatic past and his worrying present state, as he tries to see what the future might hold for him…
I have, as I am sure you have as well, seen A LOT of films on human nature and human psychology… And there are a lot of films about the various fates of various country bumpkins who try to make it in the various big cities. But rarely, if ever, have I seen a film so touching and deep at the same time. Joe’s attitude in the big city, his early life and the way he has formed his rather strange opinions of himself and sex, the way he interacts with Rizzo (or Ratso as everyone including Joe calls him, much to his disgust) they are all actually part of a “growing up” movie. Heck, the things Joe goes through in his short time in New York and the blows “real life” deals him are a bigger de-flowering than any sexual encounter ever could be… This is actually a story of finding your way, finding out who you really are and what you really want in life. To do that, the only way of doing that in fact, is following your dreams. You may see your dreams come true… You may, on the other hand, find that the road you thought led to your dreams actually ends up somewhere completely different. Somewhere you never would have thought of at first, but now you’re here you’re actually happy. Happier than anything you could have dreamt up before your journey… And this is the kind of journey we should all attempt to make, in my humble opinion…