MovieChat Forums > Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Discussion > Highly Overrated

Highly Overrated

posted 13 years ago by mutationjason
31 replies | jump to latest

I saw this for the first time today and I thought it was highly overrated. I understand the violence was groundbreaking in 1967 but aside from that there isn't a whole lot to be impressed with in the film. There is little to no connection between Bonnie and Clyde and I was given absolutely no reason to care about any of the characters. I figured the film would be about the connection between the two characters during their adventure but its about the group of people or the "Barrow gang" I don't know why they even called it Bonnie and Clyde. All of the sudden the gang is on a "crime spree" where they rob what like 3 banks if that? I couldn't have cared less during any of the deaths. It was slow even though it wasn't very long. This movie shouldn't even be put in the same category as great robbery films where the characters have connections like "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Now that is a classic. The only thing that works in this film for me is Faye Dunnaway's beauty and a catchy title.

[–] Tales-from-the-Goondocks 13 years ago

I agree with you only with the sudden crime spree part. I couldn't understand why they suddenly got into that. I disagree with everything else though. I loved this film and I just watched it for the first time today.

[–] grrrdevin 13 years ago

I don't think you're supposed to care about the characters, but you get to look forward to their total massacre at the end (assuming you already know what happens).

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[–] helloeeze 13 years ago

I hadn't seen the movie in 20 years until just recently, and I thought it held up very well. All the characters were fleshed out and I had empathy for them, even though they were bad. It was pretty entertaining still and had light-hearted and touching moments.

I remember at the time it came out the violence was pretty shocking. Today that's nothing.

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[–] derbycityusa 11 years ago

You're definitely right! You know, you really seem to have a lot of in depth insight to what is and what isn't a great picture...just like me. It's people like us that know a really great flick needs to made in a manner whereby the net result is something attuned to Rocky V or Halloween VIII. Geez, it's nice to know that people like you and I can share our brilliant insight here and properly educate the rest of the world!

[–] jctennant55-892-30458 11 years ago

It is funny in that some people think B&C was over the top violence and then there are others who think there is too little violence. Don't forget the violence during the 30's is a lot different than the violence of today. It is true some folk saw B&C as modern day Robin Hoods because in the Depression one had to do to sustain their families. Look at Grapes of Wrath. It is a perfect example of people doing things they would not normally do. I agree that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a fine film my best is Unforgiven in which Clint Eastwood is forced to become again a killer of men, women and children or any other creature.

[–] gargantuaboy 10 years ago

Yes, this movie is vastly overrated. It used to be on TV a lot in the 70's and I was never able to get through a solid half hour. I find this film so average and just boring. Why does it have this reputation of being such a great film? I love gangster movies too, but this one is just not that good. It's one of those films people try very hard to say they love and I will just never understand it.

[–] conductor71 9 years ago

If the sign of a really great thread is an over abundance of ignorant comments then this must be a really great thread!

It's hard to believe that mutationjason was actually watching the same film as me when he says: "There is little to no connection between Bonnie and Clyde and I was given absolutely no reason to care about any of the characters".

Did you completely fail to notice that the two of them were absolutely inseparable from the very first scene when they set eyes on each other, to the very last? Even when Bonnie finally tries to run away from him through a field full of crops because she is desperate to visit her mother, he catches her up and they still end up staying together, despite the increasing hopelessness of their predicament. Earlier on, after Clyde kills the bank worker, he is generous enough to put his own best interests aside by offering her the chance to leave him and return home before the police finally get to identify her with that murder. Yet she is so fatally attracted to him and his lifestyle that she is nevertheless prepared to cast aside all reasoned logic by continuing to stay with him, ignoring the obvious danger that she is putting herself in.

In a year of outstanding movies, both the lead actors (Beatty and Dunaway) were nominated for Oscars, as were two of the male supporting actors (Hackman and Pollard) and Estelle Parsons actually won the best supporting actress Oscar. So that's 5 actors all nominated for Oscars in the same film, not to mention the nominations for best Director and best original screenplay, as well as winning the Oscar for best cinematography.

Yet even this wasn't enough for mutationjason to care about the characters and moreover, grrrdevin thinks that you're not supposed to care for them but instead "look forward to their total massacre at the end". Unless you two are prepared to give the people behind this film the minimum respect they surely deserve by fully engaging all your concentration on the content of this film, which you have clearly failed to do, then your opinions have very little value.

[–] ridge-m-1 8 years ago

IMDb is overpopulated with kids that have absolutely no ability to discern art in a motion picture. Geez, just look at the tripe they flock to watch at their local multiplex. "Bonnie and Clyde", "The Graduate", and "Easy Rider" were the vanguard to the last golden age of America Cinema, the Seventies.

Excellent explanation on your part in answering "There is little to no connection between Bonnie and Clyde and I was given absolutely no reason to care about any of the characters". All I would add is that the onscreen chemistry between the two leads was electric.

[–] mplo (2356) 4 years ago

Bonnie & Clyde and Easy Rider were both made and came out in the late 1960's, not in the 1970's. A lot of the 1960's films were much better. There were some good films in the 1970's and the 1980's, but cinema had clearly already begun its decline by then.

[–] cojemy 9 years ago

Go see another super-hero movie, don't waste your time watching old movies, you will probably never like any.

[–] liscarkat (18388) 5 years ago

"Bonnie and Clyde" is a well-made movie with good performances. However, it imposes a late-60s counterculture vibe on a pair of psychopaths it wants us to see in terms of romantic tragedy. Insofar as the manipulation works, it's a successful film. The real tragedy of Bonnie and Clyde was not their demise, but the deaths of the innocent people they murdered in the course of committing their crimes and evading capture.

[–] mplo (2356) 4 years ago

Innocent people got killed in Bonnie & Clyde's spree of robberies/hold-ups, but they, too, ended up dead, as well. It goes to show that often enough, people who perpetrate violence often end up on the receiving end of it, as well.

What I heard is that in real life, Bonnie & Clyde were executed in the gas chambers, rather than ambushed and gunned down by a police squad.

[–] southernbelle (7) 9 months ago

Not true. The deaths of the real Bonnie and Clyde were pretty much what the film showed. They were gunned down on an isolated road in rural Louisiana. Neither survived long enough to receive a trial or a formal sentence of death.

[–] mplo (2356) 8 months ago

Thank you for your reply, southernbelle. I had no idea that, in real life, that Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down on an isolated road in rural Louisiana.