If not the best ever, then pretty damn close

Rating: 10/10 (24 March 2002)

only because it was directed by a cinematic deity like Stanley Kubrick can a film like Clockwork Orange be so under-rated. people love to give props to 2001, Dr. Strangelove, Paths of Glory, etc., and somehow this masterpiece is criminally passed over in the annals of history. it's time to put and end to that and I guess it's up to me to just say it: A Clockwork Orange might just be the greatest film ever made. this controversial, mind-blowing piece of future-shock-comic mayhem brings it all to the table: the thrills, the laughs, the characterization, the visual style, the action, the sex, the music, and all the attitude that goes with it. it's about some thug named Alex DeLarge, who devotes his nightlife to leading a group of punks on sprees of raping, pillaging, gangfighting, and murdering, while his days are spent ditching school to engage in deviant sexual behavior. not a bad way to go through high school, until his Machiavellian (sp?) ways alienate his friends and he winds up being thrown in the pen. not just any pen though, this is a rehabilitational facility that will stop at nothing to get the job done. and after that ..... well, in the immortal words of Smokey from "Friday": "payback's a muthafucka, ain't it?" kids, this film will truly knock you flat. it will have you laughing your ass off one minute, jaw dropping to the floor the next. even thirty years later this film loses no power for first time viewers! how many of AFI's greatest can claim that tag?