The Mish and Zach Podcast

"Joe The King" is a semi-autobiographical drama film from 1999.

Joe is a disadvantaged preteen who lives with Val Kilmer (his alcoholic father), his super stressed out mother and his older brother who like girls and sleeping. Joe works at a really shit diner run by a total madman who is rude to everyone. To save some money to buy his stressed mother some new records, Joe steals money from the diner and everyone gets really mad at him. This movie is very depressing and has no lightness. It's a lot of very angry people being very angry at everyone, especially little Joe. Even his teacher is an angry asshole.

John plays George, a guy who works at the diner and is literally the only slightly nice person in the film... and even he slaps Joe in the face at one point.