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A Clockwork Orange Movie Review

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 science fiction crime film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Malcolm McDowell. It’s a very good film.

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“It’s funny how the colors of the real world

only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen“

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The protagonist is a delinquent interested in classical music, committing violence and rape. During one of his crime sprees, he is abandoned by his gang, and caught by the police. The rest of the film follows his treatment where they try to make him be a better man and a useful part of society through torturing psychological methods.

My main gripe with this movie is its very ambiguous stance on this subject matter. I am myself highly conservative when it comes to criminals, and I would not object to them receiving the harsher punishments so of course I was going to object to this movie basically condemning everyone besides Alex whom the movie to me even glorified in some instances.

That was a big hurdle for me that the movie never overcome so in terms of morality, it’s very questionable what its motifs were. I do agree with the torturing part being criticized, but I honestly found the movie not really condemning Alex enough which really bothered me.

But it does succeed as a dystopian crime film given its strong world building where I could really see that this was near future owing to strong costumes, lushly portrayed way of living and fabulous set design. The movie is technically amazing as per usual for the director.

Kubrick’s directing here is fantastic as the film flows really well and it always looks polished. The cinematography is fantastic and I especially adored the use of slow-motion here which actually accompanied the music and crime on screen beautifully.

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I hugely loved the score here. The classical music accompanied with wildly horrific imagery truly created an otherworldly, eerie and dangerous feel to the movie. It honestly felt both classy and very creepy while continuously being highly artistic and inspired in cinematic terms. It is an incredibly cinematic experience for sure.

A Clockwork Orange actually isn’t as violent as I expected given its initial X-rating and controversial reputation. Yes, some imagery here is violent, but the movie stops at the right times so that we do not see the killing and the rape themselves, and I really appreciated that restraint.

Yes, the victims felt dehumanized which really bothered me, but those crime spree sequences were still highly effective at creating chaos and horror. The rest of the movie becomes a SF parable and a psychological drama about rehabilitation that feels longer in runtime, but is still mostly very engaging.

Alex is so well played by Malcolm McDowell who here gave his most iconic performance, and a highly believable one as well. This character is both creepy and realistic, very well developed and actually rather interesting given his language that mixes English and Russian as well as his love for classical music. But I still found Singin’ in the Rain disrespected here a bit too much. I found the narration excessive, but definitely well done.

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I would say that the film deserved all four of its Oscar nominations, in particular the directing, screenplay and editing nods were well deserved for sure. I personally do not love it and I find it to be far from my Kubrick favorites, but as is the case with most of his pictures, it gets much better upon subsequent viewings, and now I appreciate it much more.

Although definitely very questionable in its intentions, A Clockwork Orange is a highly effective dystopian crime picture with a very memorable protagonist, a lot of effective imagery and terrific directing. The editing is great and the mixing of classical music with violent imagery done mostly in slow-motion was an inspired and artistic choice that paid off. It’s not one of my favorite Kubrick films, but it is still a very strong picture that expectedly gets better upon each subsequent viewing.

My Rating – 4