Review of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) by Nick O — 29 May 2011

Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" might be the action movie's test to do so much damage without exploration of many curse words. It's also full of slick exposition tacky for all the right reasons. The emotions of "Bonnie and Clyde" are flint-quick to shift and shape the situation, that it's no wonder this pairing almost got away with murder. Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) have fate in the palm of their hands, kicking off when Clyde tries fleeing in the car parked in the yard of Bonnie's matriarch. It plays at first glance like the pouty Bonnie's paperback fantasy: a rebel smooth-talker that could charm his way into her pants, any time he wanted to.

He doesn't. Sure, he'd hit her whenever he'd like to "make an honest woman out of you", but hopes to keep her innocence intact. Problem number one. "Bonnie and Clyde" is gore to the '60s max, a '30s noir with a mind and infinity set of its own. Our antiheroes skate to sunset, if only to hurry along the dark. They later seek shelter from Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), with time left to recruit a young bug named C.W. (Michael J. Pollard), a wily vulnerability to him as ready to take a bullet and come out with his hands up.

Penn finds distraction and excitement in running on empty enough to give Dunaway and Beatty's bandits room to plan a life of urgency and surrender, trust in each other but not in themselves. Forget screwing the dreams feeding the flame burning. What kills 'em inside in the pursuit of love is the blood on the tracks, a cautious romance of two bored industries staring down the barrel of the same gun.