Brutal, shocking and ingenious.

Rating: 9/10 (25 March 2007)

I will warn you. "A Clockwork Orange" makes no apologies. Its violence is brutal, its nudity graphic. But even more provocative is the fact that the film makes you care about a character who is essentially the villain of the story. Alex DeLarge, played with aplomb by Malcom MacDonald, is a spoiled, heartless, immoral bastard. Alex enjoys making other people suffer. He shows no remorse as he beats and old drunk, rapes a writer's wife or violently bludgeons a woman to death with a ceramic phallus. He seems disappointed in being sent to prison, but never sorry. When Alex undergoes behavioral conditioning is when we really begin to feel sorry for him. He's forced to watch scenes of sex and violence which, thanks to drugs, make him feel sick. He develops a physical aversion to both of his favorite pastimes, but there is no inner change. Alex is released from prison following his treatment and finds that he is no longer welcome. his parents have rented his room to a stranger, his old gang have become police officers who beat and nearly drown him and he is plagued by suicidal thoughts. Eventually, Alex attempts suicide. He lives. To avoid embarrassment, the government undoes his conditioning and bargains with him to keep his mouth shut. In the end, we're left to wonder who the real villain is; Alex, or the system which has spawned him. The film offers no pontification of this question. The viewer must decide; is "badness" a choice or an inborn quality? And ultimately the question becomes: Is man basically good or basically evil?