Film Review: Bonnie & Clyde at the HBO/Bryant Park Summer Film Festival

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There were only a few words my Mother never let pass out of my big mouth when I was a child. Words like can’t, won't, never, hate and quit were met with bar of soap. I shit you not, I probably consumed 4 or 5 whole bars between the ages of 5 and 7 and we aren’t talking about your American candy fun soap we’re talking about old school European awful. My point is that her message stuck. So I apologize to her and to you for breaking this rule when I tell you that you will never watch a crazier love story devolve into a wild orgy of beautiful violence than the 1967 Depression-era crime drama, Bonnie and Clyde.


Wild at heart and dangerously inspired this movie is a passionate rage through a time when the great depression had this country walking Spanish down the hall. Completely amoral, perhaps psychotic, and sweetly fascinating, Bonnie and Clyde starts off bravely spirited and although Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty)  describes himself as “not much of a lover boy” there is  a palpable sexual energy between the two anti- heroes that slowly and with a great sense of humor cascades into the brutal spirit of the last act of Romeo and Juliet. I hadn’t seen this movie in 10 years and forgot how hypnotizing and beautiful Faye Dunaway (Bonnie Parker) was is her heyday.  I mean seriously. So the re-imagined plot line isn’t exactly true to the real life events that inspired the film but we are left with a real American myth that makes you want to swig bathtub gin from a flask and go rob the same bank twice just to see if you can get away with it. The dark side of all of this is that ultimately both Bonnie and Clyde turn out to be self centered all American narcissists with a flawed lack of empathy for other human beings. Well so be it. I guess you kinda have to be if your going on a suicidal crime spree. A word to the wise for those of you who see the film and are motivated to go for the gold with a fuck all attitude and a Tommy gun: Never parallel park your getaway car.

This was the last of the Bryant Park films for 2010 and that’s a damn shame because that means your going to have to wait until next year to pull out the picnic blankets and brown bag your booze to see another great classic film like this one -  out doors in the greatest city on earth.

Rating- A