Review: Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Movie: Bonnie and Clyde
Year released: 1967
Top-billed cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Michael J Pollard, Estelle Parsons, Gene Wilder
Director: Arthur Penn
Produced by: Warren Beatty
Production house: Warner Bros.

Warning: Even though I try to keep it as spoiler free as I can, I have to give away a few scenes and moments to press an emotional weight to my posts. Thus, the following article contains spoilers and plot-giveaways. Please move ahead at your own risk.

Review:
Even though I pride myself of being a decent enough Film fanatic, the guilt of not watching a Warren Beatty yet always weighed down on me. I knew a lot about Warren, just like I knew much about a lot of people across decades and industries, and after getting into a long discussion with one of my movie-buddies (the only one actually), I decided to finally break the guilt and indulge myself in a 2-hour long true story of a couple of bank robbers running away from the law with not a single strain of emotional drain on their minds.

Bonnie and Clyde is truly a story of liberation and unconditional judgment, rather than just a simple story of a family of bank robbers called the “Barrow Gang”. It takes the audience on a ride, starting from a couple of measly little small-time robbers, to a nation-wide spectacle, where both Bonnie (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) discover what it really means to fall in love.

Even though it was shot and released in the late 1960s, Bonnie and Clyde gives a 30-ish, depression era feel, in order to account for the difference in culture and generation. Scenes seem like they are edited in a way that purposely induces the viewer to sense an out-of-place, pulled back storyline, something that tells that this story is from a time much earlier than when it was made. Arthur Penn (the director), who supposedly rejected the script several times before being coerced by Warren to direct it, uplifted the film with his expertise on the golden era of Hollywood. The acting, the editing, the skillful direction and most importantly, the cinematography (which ended up bagging the Oscar) all together portray the feel of an old battered down recited story, that has lost its immorality through the ages. It makes the viewer feel a connection with Bonnie, a young women waiting on Clyde to love her as she is and Clyde, an ex-con dwindling down the same path of illicit drama, trying to compensate for his lack of ability to show physical and emotional attachment, instead of a few bank robbers on a killing spree.

Bonnie and Clyde has since been a timeless classic of love, action, subjugation, and emotional drama. It has managed to survive the test of time and is still considered as one of the greatest films ever made.

My rating - 8.3/10