Bonnie And Clyde (1967) ****1/2

Most historical dramas are inaccurate as hell. Honestly, would you pay to watch someones ho-hum life for two hours, even if there was a little excitement thrown in. Hollywood has to take a few liberties. With Bonnie and Clyde you get a few of those to jazz it up a bit. The film is about a girl named Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) who stumbles on a boy named Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) attempting to steal her mothers car. Well, we all know what happens when (semi) good girls meet bad boys- she runs off with him and the crime spree begins. They move up from stealing cars and holding up grocery stores to robbing banks and capturing the public eye; obsessing for the public eye. Along the way they pick up a driver named C. W. Moss (Michael Pollard) and drag Clyde's brother (a brilliant Gene Hackman) and his wife (Estelle Parsons) into the melee.

You know how Bonnie and Clyde is going to end. The film is watching a raging fire that's about to burn itself out and will be just a pile of dead embers in a few hours. It's the characters destiny. Making it a tougher film to make, but director Arthur Penn is able to give us a film that is half news reel and half documentary. Instead of hardened criminals lusting for blood you get people with personalities. This is probably Warren Beatty's best role of his career as he gives Clyde depth and accomplishes a hard feat: we forget that it's Warren Beatty. We believe it's Clyde Barrow. Faye Dunaway does the same. She's transformed into that girl from a Texas, yet there's still that glamour on the screen. Gene Hackman is one of the driving forces in the middle of the film. His portrayal of Buck Barrow is of a jovial figure, yet with a heavy heart that he and his wife have been drug into this mess. An early masterpiece from Hackman.

Bonnie and Clyde is an enjoyable ride to the end of the wick so to speak. Violent beyond its years (considering it was released before the ratings system) it doesn't glorify its violence. There is actual regret over the dead that was unusual in films at that point. The film was ahead of it.s time and remains a great classic.