"She was fearless and crazier than him. She was his queen. And God help anyone who dared to disrespect his queen." This may be one of the most meme-able lines from the 2016 anti-hero disaster of a movie, but no film truly fits it better than Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde. This movie is an interesting look at the late lives of the two lovers as they rob banks and take no prisoners across the country during the Great Depression. Despite some fantastic performances from the two leads and a fun yet obviously predictable story, I feel like this film is a let down in more ways than I had expected.
This movie starts off when the two infamous gangsters first meet, as Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) tries to steal Bonnie Parker's (Faye Dunaway) mother's car. The two instantly fall for each other's strange, illegal antics and begin their crime spree across the country, dragging along Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman), his wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and a young boy named C.W. (Michael J. Pollard). Since this film is based on the true stories of the couple, it makes this script a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, I did not enjoy how little buildup or conflict there was in this movie. The entire plot seemed to revolve around the two of them and their struggle to keep up their illegal reputations while staying alive. The majority of the high-energy scenes were simply them running away from the police or having a shootout. There seemed to be no end goal or motivations for either of these characters, both for what they were doing and why they were doing it. There was some decent writing and dialogue that Bonnie and Clyde both shared in many personal scenes, but it all seemed like filler to me. The reason that I am so conflicted on this aspect of the writing is that I know it is all a true story. Even though I personally did not enjoy how this film was more of a "slice-of-life" look at the two, I have to remember that everything in this film actually happened and dramatizing any of it for dramatic purposes would make many plot purists and historians very upset.
The same issue goes for the treatment of female characters in this movie. Bonnie was plainly pushed aside by Clyde and disregarded just because of her gender in many scenes, but that is most likely how he was in reality. Clyde Barrow was a very manipulative man with evil intentions and while this could be seen in some of the scenes, I feel like the writers tried too hard to get the audience to feel for what these two were doing. The romanticization of their actions was definitely just the writers wanting the audience to see their actions through a different lens, but it did not work for me, particularly because of their lack of motivations. And even the way that Bonnie and Clyde were shown as having remorse and guilt about killing a few people and robbing a few stores seemed very tame to what they were actually like in reality. Although no one may truly know how they felt in the moments they privately shared together, this film seemed to pander too much to the wishful thinking of moviegoers.
Elements of this film that I loved, however, were the performances, cinematography, editing, and the use of violence. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were excellent as the maniacal lovers and brought so much life to these infamous criminals. They both had so much energy in their respective roles and brought the much-needed light to the mediocre script. Dunaway was particularly fantastic, as her character showed the most changes throughout the narrative. As unfortunately poorly as Clyde treated Bonnie, Dunaway showed that in the most subtle and exquisite ways. This also has to do with the incredible cinematography from Burnett Guffey and editing by Dede Allen. The camera work was fantastic, especially in the expository sense that built this world very well. Allen's editing was also incredibly quick and smooth and holds up surprisingly well compared to many action films of today. The use of graphic violence in this movie had never before been seen and still proves revolutionary. Seeing different people getting shot directly in the head or riddled with bullets was, I'm certain, intensely shocking at the time, and its effectiveness still remains.
Bonnie and Clyde is bounds better than many other films of the late 1960s, but still leaves me with so many questions. Even though their characters were not as explored as much as I would have liked, two lively performances from Beatty and Dunaway make up for this developmental absence. Overall, this film is undoubtedly a classic of risky Hollywood style of this era and makes for a very exciting watch.
My Rating: ★★★½
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