genius

Rating: Null/10 (31 August 2004)

Famous for the controversy surrounding copycat violence and Kubrick's decision to withdraw it in 1973, A Clockwork Orange can now be judged for what it is: an intelligent, visually stunning, disturbing and yet queasily entertaining adaptation of what was already a great work of literature
Adapted from Anthony Burgess's slim best-selling novel written in the invented street slang Nadsat, A Clockwork Orange tells the story of Alex (McDowell) and his thug friends, addicted to mindless acts of violence, killing tramps and raping women. Equally violent is the state's aversion therapy Alex is forced to endure to cure him of his addiction.
Director Kubrick's decision to withdraw the film could be seen, cynically, as the ultimate marketing tool (after all, what film has been so notorious for so long?) but, more realistically, as a significant gesture in the annals of cinema history. The debate about whether he was the victim or instigator of the worst kind of knee jerk censorship, or even merely an artist exercising his right to choose who sees his work will run and run - not least because of Kubrick's stony silence on the issue. The balletic violence is choreographed with an unsettling slickness, coming as a sharp jab to the kidneys. It is difficult to watch and impossible to tear your eyes from. And the film has far more to offer than violent sensationalism.
Set in a future Britain, decrepit and reactionary, it cuts close to the bone when it comes to Englishness. Alex is the aesthetic hooligan, a sci-fi Mod, a Regency dandy who stalks the Thamesmead housing estate before going home to the grotesque working class kitsch of his parents. Also the script's use of Burgess's Nadsat is dazzling - and funny: "Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou!"
The film is stacked with superb performances from younger, hairier versions of talents that went on to become stalwarts of the British acting aristocracy. There's a sideburned Steven Berkoff, as a deranged and screaming police officer, a baby-faced Warren Clark, chilling yet cherubic as the sadistic Dim, and of course the unforgettable tour de force from Malcolm McDowell as Beethoven's most horrorshow admirer, Alex. Directed with assurance and filled with the cynicism, paranoia, visual flair (and lurid titillation) that characterized so much of his work, this is vintage Kubrick and classic cinema.