WARNING: Read this entry after watching the movie! Like 'Easy Rider' released a year before, 'Joe' tries to illustrate what happens when the counterculture and mainstream (albeit right-wing) America meet: a violent end ensues. Although this film is for the most part a slow-moving display of traditional "old-fashion" American morals versus the 60's "do-what-feels-good" lifestyle, it is also a commentary on upper-class vs. lower-middle class and their inability to meet in the middle as illustrated when the Comptons meet the Currans. Boyle's Joe represents a generation stuck in the 1940s and 50s where 'Kill a commie for Mommy (or jap or hippie for that matter) is okay so long as it helps and saves America. Joe and wife Mary Jo are clearly the archetypes for Archie Bunker and Dingbat wife, Edith. This movie - which will forever be known for its violent (but not bloody - no blood is seen at all) ending is uneven however. Joe blasts (verbally) the hippie generation then (literally) lays down with them to infiltrate their numbers to locate Compton's daughter - when clearly he should have been repulsed by the idea but forgoes the separatist idea for the sake of sex. When he is betrayed through thievery (read: trust of the older generation to the newer generation), he lashes out through an unrelenting chain of murder. Perhaps it is due to the Tarantinos of Hollywood that the watcher expects blood-streaming death in the end scene, but the bloodless shootings long for any sort of impact or realism. 'Joe' is not a great movie, but it is an interesting display of class and culture alienation and the animalistic underlying extremes to the generation gap.
