MOVIE REVIEW: Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Crime stories always interest me, whether it's the inception of how their subjects fell into their dirty deeds, or just the lurid subject matter itself, it's always great material for entertaining storytelling. Bonnie and Clyde was something I'd been meaning to get around to for awhile. Notorious for it's level of violence back in the 60s, I can assure you, they weren't kidding! Bonnie and Clyde is probably the bloodiest, bullet-riddled film I've seen that's not a western (I can assure you, in my opinion, The Wild Bunch is more comfortably the Scarface of the 1960s, in terms of violence). What some may not know is, it also happens to be a pretty interesting character study, about it's two notorious subjects.

In the 1930s, Clyde Barrow meets Bonnie Parker, after she foils his attempt to steal her car. On a rash decision, Bonnie joins Clyde on several of his bank heists and becomes infatuated with her two new loves - Clyde, and a life of crime. What begins to complicate matters between them involves Clyde's obnoxious brother and his equally grating wife coming along for the ride. Despite the obvious pressures placed on their relationship, Bonnie and Clyde somehow manage to make a decent living out of becoming cultural icons of crime...for a while, anyway...

In a way, Bonnie and Clyde can almost be seen as a dysfunctional romance/drama with tommy guns. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty bring so much charisma and life to their characters that I became riveted the minute they stepped onto the screen. It's no wonder this film was so popular when it came out, the way director Arthur Penn glamorizes the gangster life almost makes the sins of crime seem like an idyllic fantasy in itself. At times, I couldn't decide though if I felt the pace of the film was too quick, because I didn't know if I was getting enough of a sense of character development in the film. However, the hedonistic tone, and the acting easily made me forgive this. And for a 60s film, the violence is fierce, with several sustained shootouts and enough bloodshed which probably paved the way for such graphic depictions like that of The Godfather. While Bonnie and Clyde is also a tragedy, it's an extremely riveting look that enthusiastically romanticizes the gangster life of the 1930s.

8/10

Peace,
-Jon