Bonnie y Clyde

I just watched the Bonnie and Clyde mini series. The Story differs from the 1967 Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway classic. The one surprise I found here. The Story centres on Clyde. Emile Hirsh does a good job as Clyde Barrow. Holiday Graniger does a very good job as Bonnie Parker. But while I watched the film I found myself wondering just how much was fact. And How much was fiction. William Hurt plays Texas Ranger Frank Hamner with a sense of Justice and moral outrage. When Hamner plots to execute Bonnie and Clyde a young cop asks him who appointed him as executioner and Hamner points to a dead cop. "He did" He coldly replies. Hurt plays the role of Hamner the way the history books write about him. He hated criminals and when Bonnie and Clyde made fools of the authorities he decided to execute them . Now the Biggest surprise for me was in the handling of Clyde Barrow. Clyde has this reputation of being a man so far under bonnie's spell that he was almost dumb. Not so. As far back as 1958 when Dorothy Provine made the Bonnie PArker story. There was this myth about Bonnie. This mini series addresses that myth and humanizes her and Clyde to the point where they feel like real people. And when Clyde gets tired of it and finds out to his horror. That Bonnie isn't . He realizes that he helped create a monster who wants more. More fame More headlines more money. No matter how high the bodies pile up. I enjoyed it a lot. where the 1967 Bonnie and Clyde tries to make them out to be anti heroes. This mini series is out to make them criminals the way they were. nothing heroic about them. Would I recommend this to any one interested in the 1930's crime scene yes. Would I pass it off as the real story of Bonnie and Clyde ? No Because while it tries too hard to be as close to the facts. It has a way of reverting to Hollywood story telling. But all in all not a bad bit of film making at all.

Are that there was a gang known as Bonnie and Clyde...

They had a lawman named Frank Hamer (a real life Walker: Texas Ranger) chasing after them...

And their stories converge in Louisiana when an ambush kills Bonnie and Clyde.

Everything else was just filler to try to tell a story.

Let's be real here though, it was A&E that put this together: Arts and Entertainment, which also owns Lifetime (conversely known as Wifetime), and History, which seems less concerned about history and more concerned about spinning a good story. With that, the cinematography is good for a "made for television" budget, and the acting is good. It isn't garbage like many reviews are saying it is. However, elements of teleplay really push what's good about this into territory that it doesn't need to go.

The real history of Bonnie and Clyde is compelling enough, considering much of what they did was interpreted as desperate people fighting back against cold-hearted and nameless capitalist institutions during the Great Depression. And that a woman would get caught up in it was also compelling. Had the story stuck to that, this would have been better. There is however no need to distort the history to tell a good story when the story can stand on its own.

It gets credit from me for the filming and the acting. It looses too much on the rest.

Bonnie and Clyde (2013)

*** (out of 4)

The life, times and eventual brutal death of Clyde Barrow (Emile Hirsch) and Bonnie Parker (Holliday Grainger) is the focus of this three-hour movie that shows their rise to fame. The latest telling of the Bonnie and Clyde story is a pretty good movie but at the same time you've got to feel that it was a wasted opportunity because so much more could have been done. Again, if you're a film buff or a fan of history then you're going to enjoy this re-enactment but at the same time there were a few important things left out. One being showing the poor state that the country was in while all of this was going on. There really wasn't enough detail to this and I'd also say that the reporter character really didn't serve any purpose. If they were going to use her as much as they did then they might have well told the entire story from her point of view. With that said, there's still plenty going on here that makes it worth sitting through. For starters, the two leads are both very good in their roles as you have no problem believing them as the characters. This here is especially true for Grainger who turns in an excellent performance because there were so many different emotions to Parker yet she captures all of them perfectly and especially towards the end when she starts to "want" the fame more than anything else. William Hurt also turns in a good performance as Frank Hamer and Holly Hunter is also good in the role of Parker's mother. The cinematography is top-notch from start to finish and I also thought they captured the look of the era quite well. The newsreel footage scattered throughout the film was also a nice touch. While this film is very good it's certainly no match for the 1967 film, which remains the greatest version of this story.

This is a very pretty television drama. When you watch it you will see the greens just jump out of your screen! And, the actors are very pretty too. But you know, you can step outside right now to your yard and if you are lucky enough to have a blooming plant this time of the year you can hoist up your IPhone and shoot a picture of it and that will be pretty, too.

Too bad, but your flower is insignificant compared to the first of it's species, kind of like this made-for-TV-movie.

Note to the youngsters: Once upon a time Dunaway, Beatty and Penn made a movie that was an outrage versus any other crime movie that had ever been made. So many things about it, including the performances, the editing and the cinematography are so unique-first-time-ever I can't actually believe that I am really seeing this that there can't be any sequel. There can't be any retelling. There can't be this television thing.

So, while I can give it a 5.5 rating I am more into wondering why it wss even made. Hurt and Hunter needed work? Same with Hirsch? Who knows, and more importantly who cares.

Boy is this a bad film! And I don't understand it - the cast was good enough but the writers and movie makers made choices in fictionalizing the story to the point where I was just tearing my hair out, screaming at the TV (I saw this, of course, at home). I won't be a spoiler, so I can't get into details but all I want to say here is: avoid this piece of trash! The Warren Beatty movie was so much better and so much truer to the real story it's not funny. (And this is the first bad review I've posted on this site - and I've posted quite a few.) If you do watch this movie, then you owe it to yourself afterward to read a few good books or even just read their wikipedia write-up. You'll then also be angry at all of the fabrications in this film. Why did they choose to diverge from the truth, which makes an even better story than the lie they chose to tell? Sorry. I think movie makers owe true subjects a heavy dose of respect when they present a story that most movie goer will think is true - to present a lie, as they do here, is unconscionable, especially with two such iconic and infamous yet important characters in our nation's history.