Bonnie and Clyde 1967

Born without a penny to their names, nor the promise of a future worth living, a pair of depression-era twenty-somethings find motivation in one another. Emboldened by their romance and certain about their invulnerability, the pair sets off to get rich quick via a string of car thefts and brazen, bloody daylight robberies. Joined by a small trio of accomplices, tales of their exploits soon capture the public imagination in an age when many felt hopeless, crushed and discarded by the system.

This film brings us up-close and personal with the title characters and their little family, learning about their various quirks and tics between heists. Like most young adults, Bonnie and Clyde’s self-confidence is both a blessing and a curse. Their opportunistic nature makes them difficult to track but also traps them in some very sticky situations. They don’t intend to commit mass murder, but when the other shoe drops (and it often does), sometimes their guns are the only way out and hey, better you than me. An experienced criminal, Clyde knows the score, but Bonnie sees their cross-country escapade as a sort of childish fantasy, never truly recognizing how much danger she’s in until the numbers catch up and the situation grows dire. They’re just kids, playing at being adults, but the law ain’t messing around.

Looking back almost sixty years later, the amount of blood and violence depicted in Bonnie and Clyde hardly seems excessive. It can be harsh and brutal at times, sure, but these doomed lovers chose a harsh, brutal life together and the film portrays that appropriately. Nobody’s ever robbed a bank with cap guns and candy apples, after all, or ditched the police by blowing kisses through a window. Way back in 1967, however, this was held up as evidence of our decaying moral fabric and many contemporary reviews were outraged. What kind of cinema will our children be watching, should this awful trend towards graphic bloodshed continue? I’d hate to see their reactions to Tarantino.

I was so impressed with Warren Beatty in The Parallax View (1974), that I had to go back and catch up on his filmography. Unfortunately, I was not particularly impressed with this film, which is one of his biggest and earliest hits.

While some may call it an unfair criticism, my biggest issue with the film was that it shows its age. It is the 1960's version of an action blockbuster, where a significant portion of the screen time is dedicated to extended car chases and shootouts. While those elements may have impressed audiences 50+ years ago, they did very little for me in 2022. It's an unfortunate fact that certain types of films will age more gracefully than others, which is how a more dialogue driven conspiracy thriller like The Parallax View (1974) can blow me away, while this film leaves me bored.

One would hope that the saving grace would be the acting. After all, the film had five performances nominated for Oscars, one of which won. However, the acting can only do so much in a film that is largely driven by action. This isn't to say that the performances are bad. There was plenty to praise. In particular, I thought Gene Hackman injected a lot of life into the script once he and Estelle Parsons came into the picture. But it wasn't enough to save the film for me. This is a simple story, and it didn't leave me particularly invested.