A Clockwork Orange

Malcom McDowell, Michael Bates, Patrick Magee

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Rating: C

Alex (McDowell) is a young, rampant, violent, sex machine. He and his group of "brothers" go about stealing, fighting, and raping about in England until one day they don't want Alex as the leader and leave him to be picked up by the police. After murdering a woman, Alex is charged with a fourteen year prison sentence. After two years of good behavior, he convinces the governor to be picked for a new experimental treatment that cures bad men of their habits to never doing a bad thing again. After two weeks of a sickening process, Alex can't stand violence or sex or even Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony", driving him mad. Alex is the government's pawn in leading England free of crime.

A Clockwork Orange is a disturbing movie that crawls under your skin. It's intentions are to make the audience uncomfortable right from the first scene. Alex stares at the camera for a lengthy time; that's the only thing viewers see. The camera zooms out to reveal a room that Alex and his friends are sitting in, white plastic models of naked girls in uncomfortable positions leave watchers feel like averting their eyes. While Alex goes through a reformation process he is still slightly disturbed, retching and making belching noises when confronted with violence or sex.

Alex is a hard character for viewers to sympathize with. After seeing what he's done with his life, even after he has been "reformed", viewers don't feel so sorry for Alex. The audience may still think he may not have gotten what he deserved for all the wrong he has done. True, viewers might feel bad when his parents don't let him come live back in their house, but besides that, Alex is an unsympathetic character.

This is a movie that is loved or hated between many viewers. I think it deserves a "C" rating because on the whole, it's a very disturbing movie. I've always wanted to see it just because the name pops up every now and then but this is a movie you rarely watch. I would recommend this movie to those who are okay with uncomfortable movies, like The Black Swan or Trainspotting. While viewers may ponder if the main character, Alex, will ever be okay, the real question is, was he ever okay to begin with?