Review of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) by Kylie P — 21 Feb 2010

From September 16, 2008:

The performances by Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman, and Parsons in Bonnie and Clyde were all very funny, sly, and occasionally touching. Particularly enjoyable was Warren Beatty, so young, so effacing, and so on top of his game, seeing the range of emotions displayed from a wink and a smile to outright temper to deep concern and worry for his "honey," Bonnie. Faye Dunaway was also good. Her Texas accent was a little, well, forced.

The art direction and cinematography, with its grainy old-movie haze, and the direction were also very good. The ending scenes were truly groundbreakers, undoubtedly becoming the model for many a violent and slow motion demise for characters of all types in films to come. It was remarkable that they found so many different types of automobiles for the film to be available for theft by the Barrow gang. The pacing was a little choppy, however. The film seemed to slow to a crawl right in the middle, when they were establishing themselves as bank robbers of the century and when the love story between Clyde and Bonnie was coming in and out of focus depending on the distraction. It was hard to stay engaged in any kind of meaningful way at that point because it felt like the movie was as all-over-the-place as its title characters.

The film's biggest problem was the story execution. When there's a true story put to film, often times details will be fudged for the artistic impact, but with all of the background material available to the screenwriters, the story was just a little too trite, a little too easy. Maybe their relationship was, in real life, all about the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am," fast-paced, and fueled by spontaneity and foolish decisions, but the film struggled to find a focal point, even when it should have been Bonnie and Clyde themselves. Was it about their love for one another? Their crime spree? Their sense of raw hedonism? It was, of course, about all of those things, but it meandered without finding that center. The viewer is supposed to accept that Clyde's literal impotence sparked his penchant for violence and crime, or that Bonnie was really just a mama's girl looking for a good time, so the character development was also a bit truncated. The problem came with trying to paint Bonnie and Clyde as sympathetic anti-heroes. What is a sympathetic anti-hero? Batman is an anti-hero. He takes dark roads with the goal of justice in mind. Bonnie and Clyde were simply carefree criminals who occasionally did not rob poor people, and their love story, which was played largely for laughs and slapstick, was, as a result, largely less than compelling. They were also rebels, though, and this film was released during a time when youth rebellion--counter culture--was en vogue.