A Clockwork Orange Movie Review – Starring Malcolm McDowell and Patrick Magee

Posted on 2007 under Drama

"A Clockwork Orange" is a disturbing film set in a violent world in the near future. The film concerns Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his gang of "droogs", who go out at night performing all manners of "ultraviolence". The language spoken in Nadsat, a fictional futuristic English dialect.

The movie begins in London, where Alex and his gang beat up an old beggar on a bridge near the Thames. They go on to perform more horrific acts, including beating up a rival gang, terrorizing drivers on a country road, and tying up and beating a writer at his house and raping his wife. Alex ends up antagonizing the rest of his gang, so they plot against him. Eventually they betray him to the police after he breaks into a house and murders a young woman.

Alex spends the next two years in prison. While there, he overhears of an experimental procedure known as the Ludovico technique, which supposedly makes bad people good, ensuring that they never return to prison. He opts for the procedure, which lasts two weeks. The procedure involves being given an experimental serum which produces an adverse reaction to violence and being forced to watch violent films. By the end of his treatment, he's supposedly cured, though he is unable to act violently, even in self-defense. The treatment also has the adverse side effect of making Alex go crazy upon hearing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he used to love.

The day he is freed turns out to be horrible for Alex. First he tries to return home, but finds his parents have rented out his room and won't allow him to return. He tries to fight off the new tenant but becomes sick in the process. Then he wanders out in the street where he encounters the same old beggar, who recognizes him and harasses him along with a group of old men. The police come to break up the brawl, but the policemen turn out to be none other than two of his old gang members, who beat him up and nearly kill him.

Wandering aimlessly, Alex ends up back at the house of the writer, who does not recognize him because he and his gang members had been wearing masks. The writer read about his treatment in the newspapers and sympathizes with him, so he agrees to take him in. Shortly thereafter, however, he discovers Alex's true identity, whence he drugs him and forces him to listen to Beethoven's Ninth. Alex tries to kill himself by jumping out of the window, but manages to survive.

In the end, Alex is hospitalized. The doctors reverse the Ludovico procedure, so he can once again listen to Beethoven's Ninth and no longer has an adverse reaction to violence. Alex ends up working for the Minister of the Interior, who'd approved the procedure which nearly killed him, in order to restore the Minister's public image.

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