A brutally violent yet intellectually challenging classic

Rating: 10/10 (16 February 2005)

It amazes me how a movie like this, which was so hugely controversial when it was released, can be so completely ignored now by the average movie watcher. Kubrick was widely reviled because of the way he pushed the boundaries of what was considered "acceptable" in movies  specifically, sex and violence, the two-headed cultural Hydra that continues to fascinate and repel us. Although I've read a number of reviews that chastise the film for being "old hat" and really no big deal here at the beginning of the 21st Century, I have to admit that this picture is still as shocking, brutal, comic, nihilistic, and philosophically challenging now as it was in 1971  and if someone tells you different, then get the hell away from that person because they've become so desensitized to violence that they'd probably think that the 5-car pileup they just passed was faked because the blood didn't look real! But under all the violence, what Kubrick gave us is a parable, narrated by Malcolm McDowell like some demented younger brother of Fielding's Tom Jones, about choice. The plot is the story of Alex, a young ne'er-do-well living off his parents in a cookie-cutter flat in a slightly-futuristic London who cuts class during the day and hangs out at night with his "droogs" in a bar where they serve milk laced with various drugs  which is just a prelude for "a bit of the old ultra-violence", as Alex calls it. Kubrick shows their various escapades and adventures, that escalate from a simple joyride to a rumble...to a harrowing home invasion where Alex sings "Singin' in the Rain" while beating the living crap out of the writer who lives there  which is then followed by a ball gag in his mouth so he can watch Alex and his gang beat and gang-rape his wife. Eventually, the gang turns on Alex because he's an arrogant, supercilious, conceited, manipulative son of a bitch who's not above sending his cane crashing into the balls of his gang-mates to assert his authority as leader. They set him up with a little breaking-and-entering action which Alex, sadist that he is, turns into a murder when he assaults the woman who lives there with a statue of a giant penis! He's convicted and sent to prison for 15 years, and normally that would be the end for someone like him. But not for our little hero, who discovers that he has an untapped talent for hypocrisy, a talent that he uses to manipulate the prison chaplain into making him first his assistant and then to get him accepted into the "Ludovico Treatment". Of course Alex doesn't care what the treatment is  all he cares about is that it will get him out of prison, permanently, in a fortnight, as a completely rehabilitated member of society. But, for once, Alex has outfoxed himself. The treatment is not some simple psychological counseling and job-training program  it's a new and radical method of re-sensitizing an individual, essentially a kind of massive negative reinforcement towards sex and violence. And THAT'S where the crux of the picture, the essence of Kubrick's argument lies. The treatment makes Alex physically sick and induces suicidal tendencies when he tries to act violently or engage in sexual activity, which makes him "cured" in the eyes of society and the government. But, as the chaplain says, he has lost the ability to choose his behavior and, in the end, isn't that the only thing that distinguishes man from beast? It isn't intelligence, it isn't laughter, it isn't the opposable thumb  it's the fact that, for human beings, there is really no such thing as instinctive behavior. Alex has not learned that his behavior is wrong, objectionable, evil  all he's learned is that if he tries to act that way, he'll feel like retching and killing himself. He's simply been programmed to respond in a specific way to specific stimuli, not to make any kind of moral choice. And not only is it not a permanent solution, it also has the unintended consequence of taking Beethoven's music away from Alex, who just loves "Ludwig van" but can't listen to the 9th Symphony anymore because it was the background music the treatment used! Filmed in Kubrick's signature chillingly documentary style, it's a picture that will make you laugh, cringe, but most of all, think.