A movie that should gladden the hearts of career criminals everywhere

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 1999)

Stanley Kubrick's ode to personal freedom at any cost is one of the most amoral movies ever made. The film seems to be implying that it's all right for a person with incorrigible anti-social tendencies to rape and steal and murder if the "Ludovico Technique" is the only alternative. Kubrick really wants us to think that Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is a cool guy. First, we have the chummy, confidential narration, spoken by Alex himself. Then the director distances us from the rapes, beatings and brawls perpetrated by Alex and his buddies by setting them to jolly Rossini and Beethoven. He then dehumanizes Alex's victims by making them even more vicious and disgusting than he. Figures of authority are either pathetic, grotesque cartoons (Alex's parents) or sadistic repressed homosexuals (Alex's correctional officer). The movie does raise the important question of just how far a government should go in attempting to reform career criminals, but since cocky Alex does volunteer for the treatment in order to get a reduction of his prison sentence, no one can say that he doesn't know what he's in for. However, Kubrick means for us to cheer at the end when our "hero" is able to return to his old sociopathic self. Somehow, I didn't feel like joining in the chorus.