Interesting Themes

Rating: 8/10 (21 November 2008)

Considering it was released 37 years ago, the ideas/ideology expressed in the film still present relevant and certainly thought provoking moral challenges.
The initial violence is enough to tip the vulnerable mind into copying it and I would be surprised if there have not been unmistakable attempts recorded in criminal acts over the past 37 years to prove this.
However the film regains its footing on this score when McDowell's aversion therapy works, at least until the Psychiatrist in the Hospital sees him near the end, a very funny scene where he is shown diagrams and must supply the missing quote "did I pass?"
It was interesting to see a young Warren Clarke as Dim, recently Dalziel and Pascoe as Dalziel. He has worked pretty constantly since his appearance in A Clockwork Orange.
A virtually flawless script the peculiarity of Alex's phraseology is remarkably easy to follow and gives the character his sense of mischief and non conformism.
The humorous scene at the end where he is being fed, symbolically as well, by the Minister and holds his mouth open to indicate that his primary interest is food and that his entitlement to it is unquestioned conveys that his miscreant former personality is well on its way back.
McDowell finding himself back in the home of one of his victims and initially unrecognized is another clever role reversal and his torture is repaid to some extent.
The prison guard is hilarious, the army sergeant personality parodied so well in the past by such comedic geniuses as the late Milligan is well played.
Does he die in the end or does he pass into a very graphic fantasy that consumes him? An intentional ambiguity I feel.