from the cheap seats

DVD: Crank

2007-02-15T21:57:00.000Z

Crank is quite literally 78 minutes of non-stop adrenaline pumping action, with a few minutes of credits tagged on the end. Jason Statham wakes to find he has been injected with a "Beijing Cocktail" that will kill him within the hour. The only way to postpone death is to keep adrenaline flowing through his veins. He decides that two things need to happen before he dies. He must say goodbye to his girl and kill the man who injected him.

Most action films have a pretense of depth about them with directors trying to show they are the new Tarrantino or choreograph their action scenes as if they are balletic high art. Thankfully in this regard Crank is like a child overdosing on Red Bull who has just come off a big rollercoaster, it follows one set piece with another with hardly a pause for breath. Mexican stand-offs are eschewed as they are simply too darn slow. The film veers so much into the absurd that you start to forget what normality looks like and pulls a range of stunts that seem to have come straight out of the Jackass handbook.

Statham seems to have been tailor made with films like this in mind. His wired, pissed off expression doesn't crack for the entire film and there is occasionally time for a nice few one liners. The film is a cheap, trashy, vacuous B movie that solely wants to hold your attention for every minute of it's brief running time. If only there were more films like it.

Film: Hot Fuzz

2007-02-12T23:06:00.000Z

Parodies generally make for hit and miss fun that passes ephemerally by. Whilst Airplane and Naked Gun managed to maintain an audience over the years it is unlikely that recent fodder like Scary Movie will be appearing anywhere other than late night repeats on lesser digital TV channels in future years. Therefore the quality and success of Shaun Of The Dead stood out like a talented individual in a Pop Idol final. To call it a cult parody would be to undermine both it mainstream success and the emotional heart and tight plotting at it's centre.

Hot Fuzz, the new film from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, attempts to repeat the formula. This time the shallow but amusing premise is that a highly successful London based policeman is shunted out to a quiet country beat to stop him showing up the rest of the Metropolitan Police force. How will has hard-line urban approaching work in little England. Cue Bad Boys in a village near Bath.

Much of the cast of Shaun Of The Dead re-appear, including Nick Frost playing a markedly similar role to his previous character Ed. However the big difference is that Simon Pegg has abandoned his slacker persona to portray Britain's most effective cop. Choosing such an exceptional high flyer as the lead character makes it harder to empathize with the central story than in Shaun. Pegg's restrained acting suits the part, but it's like watching a talented footballer just playing short passes rather than attempting jaw-dropping through balls. It's only when the action cranks up in the final third that he employs his full comic range and the film lifts noticeably at this point.

Edgar Wright uses the fast cutting, amped up visual style that has served him so well and deploys it good effect, effectively taking classic Michael Bay and John Woo shots and giving them an absurd spin by way of the surroundings. His major achievement is managing to create scenes that are both adrenaline pumping and laugh out loud funny.

The cast is so ridiculously packed with stars it almost becomes a parody of it's parodic self as each minor character is taken by a starry cameo by the likes of Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan and Martin Freeman. However in the main supporting roles Timothy Dalton and Jim Broadbent are superb, with Dalton mugging more than a royal dalton factory and Broadbent underplaying to sublime effect.

The laughs in Hot Fuzz are frequent and hearty. The main comment it will attract is "it's not quite as good as Shaun Of The Dead", but since few films are half as good as that, we will gratefully receive one that is 90% as good.

Film: Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer

2007-02-12T23:04:00.000Z

As soon as a novel is described as "unfilmable" and starts to amass a list of big name directors who have toyed with the project and moved on, any adaptation seems doomed to partial or total failure. Even ideal matches such as Terry Gilliam directing Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas failed to do much commercial business. So Perfume, the book of aromas that Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick apparently walked away from, would seem to be damned from the off - whether by reason or just self-fufilling prophecy.

The story revolves around an orphan called Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who is born with the finest sense of smell in the world. This we know because is seems that half the film is taken up by shots of his nose twitching followed by a camera charging like a demented rugby player towards the source of the aroma. Jean is not the best adjusted of men, and his quest to distill the perfect sent starts to take a very dark and ugly turn, as the films full title "Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer" rather gives away. What next, "Titanic: A Ship That Sinks" or "Pearl Harbour: A Historical And Filmic Disaster".

The film is directed by Tom Tykwer who had a huge cult hit with his debut Run Lola Run. He also has past form with bringing troubled projects about murderers to the screen having done an excellent job with Heaven in 2002, the film that Krzysztof Kieslowski was working on when he died. Since then he has taken a long break from film-makingand the un-even tone of Perfume may reflect an uncertainty that has crept in during the years of stasis.

The source novel is very dark and serious in tone, however the film elicits a number of laughs through it's length, some clearly un-intentional and some maybe less so. The most farcical section features Dustin Hoffman as a washed up perfumier whose career is re-ignited by the talents of Jean-Baptiste. Allowing for the horrific accent that careers between Italy and America faster than Concorde ever managed, Hoffman turns in a magnetic mannered comic performance that is in completely the wrong film.

Perfume is visually stunning, as befits the most expensive German film ever made. However the story it tells is art-house rather than mainstream and the over-bearing hand of producers trying to lighten the tone lingers like the smell of burnt toast in a kitchen. So yet another "unfilmable novel" seems to justify it's billing, but there is enough here to make for an intriguing, if ultimately unsatisfying watch.

DVD: The Proposition

2007-02-12T23:03:00.000Z

Nick Cave's first outing as a screenwriter feels like one of his more damned and blasted songs. To save his younger brother from the noose Charlie Burns must murderer his outlaw older brother.

However despite the film lingering heavily on Guy Pearce as he wrestles with Charlie's dilemma, the core of the film is actually the English police captain played by Ray Winstone and his wife Emily Mortimer. As he struggles to bring civilisation to the alien land of Australia he sees around him he finds his strength and morals stretched to breaking point.

Despite capturing some marvelous scenery and featuring some brutal violence, The Proposition is a verbal film, to the extent that you could believe it originated as a play. However the dialogue is not sharp enough and the film not focussed enough to truly dig it's claws in. As a single coloured mood piece that draws heavily on Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia it will appeal to those who like their films black, blasted and with damnation inevitable, but there is not enough here to rise above it's origins.

Book: Seeing by Jose Saramago

2007-02-12T22:56:00.000Z

On a wet day in Portugal officials wait as an election takes place. When the votes are counted 80% of them are found to be blank. The confused government decides to re-run the election a week later imploring voters to cast a meaningful vote, but the result is the same and the government steadily enforces a martial law on where is starts to fear is a terrorist plot.

Seeing picks up four years after Blindness, an earlier work by Saramago based around the idea of a plague of white blindness. Both books have a gripping central theme that allows many analogies with the political state of the modern world, but both struggle to draw the reader in. Seeing is especially problematic in it's absence of paragraphs and quotation marks, requiring a high level of concentration and focus from the reader that distances them from the narrative.

Whilst Saramago clearly has a knack for great ideas, he may need to refresh his mind on some of the more basic ideas of the novel.

DVD: Aeon Flux

2006-09-02T10:47:00.000+01:00

There is a theory that some films are so bad that they are good. Films with farcical plots, terrible acting and shaky sets that remind you of the cheap antics of directors like Ed Wood. Aeon Flux is not a film that supports this argument. It is crushingly mediocre in all departments, with blank acting performances, cliched storylines and dull production design.

The basic set-up is that four hundred years into the future a virus has wiped out all bar a final outpost of human civilisation, that lives separated from the rampant nature that has over-run the rest of the planet. Here they live in a perfect world, that resembles a fashionable shampoo advert. However something dark is happening beneath the surface and Aeon Flux sets out to find out what.

As it limps from one tired set-piece to another you wonder whether the film was every properly scripted or whether they just filmed the thing following an early brainstorming session. Aeon Flux, so bad it's bad.

DVD: Capote

2006-09-01T19:10:00.000+01:00

A quiet and focussed view of the climax of Truman Capote's career, this is a film that bucks the trend of recent biopics by eschewing the traditional three act structure and rewarding those who know about the subject.

DVD: Grizzly Man

2006-08-02T22:32:00.000+01:00

Grizzly Man is billed as the tragic tale of a man competing with nature as he spent 13 summers camping close to wild bears before being killed by one. The film itself is more a battle between two men, failed actor Timothy Treadwell who re-invented himself as a protector of bears and Steve Austin style wild-man and notorious director Werner Herzog who fashions this documentary about Treadwell into his personal quest to understand the man.

The footage Treadwell shot in the wild is certainly impressive stuff, and as with anyone left alone for long periods of time with just a video camera for company he soon starts opening up and giving a glimpse into why he left a life waiting tables and narrowly missing out on the Woody Harrelson part in Cheers to spend time in an awe-inpsiring Alaskan national park. In fact, phrased like that why is he being painted as the crazy one? Oh yes, that will be because of the big old bears that eat people.

More disconcerting in terms of the film is Herzog's very personal voiceover as he strains to empathize with someone who has a totally different view of life. Where Treadwell sees peace and beauty, Herzog sees chaos and barely sustained rage. This tension gives the film a real edge and avoids any cute simplifications, but too often you feel the two men are competing for your attention. in one bizarre scene Herzog films himself listening to tape of Treadwell dying before boldly instructing a friend never to listen to it and then to destroy it. This serves only to place Herzog centre stage and to pull him into the narrative of events.

As well as Herzog's physical presence, the direction is strangely artificial, with the brief pauses and wandering pans during a number of the interviews giving the piece a Brechtian avant-garde nature. All this sums up to a documentary which is constantly challenging and intriguing, but often frustrating. One to watch in a group and discuss.

Film: Pirates Of The Caribbean Dead Man's Chest

2006-07-12T23:13:00.000+01:00

I blame Star Wars, I really do. Every since the George Lucas cash cow redefined Hollywood's view of how you make money in this game the idea of a movie trilogy has acquired some sort of divine status. Any film that rakes in a decent haul at the box office doesn't provoke thoughts of a single sequel, but two sequels. These are not cheap cash ins. No, these are the artist being able to complete their vision with adequate breathing space.

This of course is all cobblers. And on the heels of The Lord Of The Rings, The Matrix, X-Men, Underworld and others not even worthy of breath comes the second film in the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy. Filmed back to back with part three this allows Gore Verbinski, the auteur behind films such as Mousehunt, to complete his grand vision for this tale that was based on a Disney theme park ride. All that said the first film looked like a train wreck from a distance and proved to be a highly enjoyable piece of matinee fun, so maybe lightning will strike twice.

The film opens with the wedding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) being knocked somewhat off schedule by them both being arrested under threat of the death penalty for allowing Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) to escape the clutches of those flat footed British soldiers. It's a reversal of fortune that recalls such glorious sequels as Ghostbusters 2. Before Will and Liz are swinging from a gallows, Will is offered a way to save them both that involves him heading out to sea and finding Jack and before you know it swash is being buckled and main-braces are being spliced.

The film doesn't so much have a plot as a tenuous chronology that links various CGI heavy set-pieces, many of which repeat themselves in various guises throughout the film. Whilst these are executed in a perfectly competent fashion they are far from memorable and none of them stand out as a good action sequence should, like the government lobby in the Matrix. The sword play is executed without any style, often being closer to a pub brawl fought by ballerinas scared of a scratch rather than either the mesmeric samurai work of Crouching Tiger or the brutal rage you would expect of scurvy sea dogs.

The cast all reprise their roles from the first film, generally with diminishing returns. Depp is still amusing but the added screen time of his character, now pushed firmly centre stage leaves him mugging all too often to cover a barren script, whilst the attempts to make him a good guy are clear evidence that the Disney corporation wants everyone to be a role model, even a pirate with no morals. The exceptions to the "not as funny as last time" rule are Mackenzie Crook's one eyed pirate who has found good and studies his bible carefully, despite being illiterate and Orlando Bloom who couldn't have been much worse last time round.

The enemy this time round is Davy Jones, played by an unrecognizable Bill Nighy under a mass of CGi tentacles. He and his crew look like fish theme Orcs that were rejected from the initial design stages of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and whose principle purpose is to sell action figures. They are neither scary nor amusing, just clearly a computer construct. One is left wistfully remember Geoffrey Rush ghost pirate crew of the original who thankfully were human enough most of the time to actually deliver performances.

The film also suffers from character creep with too many of the original films characters returning for cameos as well as new people arriving. Any sane editor would have hacked the film down to 90 minutes rather than the needless 150 it runs. The film is flat enough that you could randomly remove half it's length and improve it by making sure that it doesn't outstay the welcome of it's charms.

Whilst the film briefly gathers real momentum for a spell two thirds of the way through the ending, stolen straight from Empire Strikes Back, is unsatisfactory, confirming the clear feeling that the film was always going nowhere fast. If you are prepared to be patient the film's good humored banter should suffice for pantomime style fun, but less would have been so much more.

Book: Columbia Road by Matt Whyman

2006-07-06T21:44:00.000+01:00

A book written by an internet agony uncle should probably contain two main ingredients, high technology and relationship issues. Columbia Road has both. The basic set up is that a mismatched group of tenants are unable to cover their recently inflated rent. Instead of turfing them out on the street their landlord offers them a deal. Have webcams installed to make the house a 24 hour show home for his other properties and they can stay rent free. But soon they find they have given up more than they think.

Whyman is a very immediate writer, working with short chapters and keen to throw in a cute turn of phrase to keep his readers attention. His background in writing short, light hearted insightful articles makes Columbia Road an enjoyable page turner, but the broad characters leave little room for any deep empathy.

DVD: Walk The Line

2006-07-06T19:57:00.000+01:00

Enough already with the childhood trauma. It is becoming a painfully banal Hollywood truism that any issues that arise later in a person life can be explained by something bad that happened to them as a child. It's like an understanding of psychology based on reading a single paragraph of a Sigmund Freud book. And like the boy who cried wolf, when there is a film that might justify use of an explanation like that, you are so tired of hearing it you don't believe.

As such we have Walk The Line, the biopic of Johnny Cash. If you have seen Ray you know the plot. Brother dies as a child, no decent Father figure, marries childhood sweetheart, becomes famous musician, starts taking drugs, cheats on wife, finds new love, quits drugs and everything ends happily ever after. Thus seems to be the life of any musician according to Hollywood.

What is damning is not that we have seen this type of thing before, but that the film tells you no more about Johnny Cash and his music than Ray did, despite the latter film being about a completely different person. All we learn about his music is that he wrote Folsom Prison Blues after watching a film and he invented his musical style on the spot when Sam Philips told him his gospel was as dull as Dido slowly painting a wall Magnolia. The film is almost entirely disinterested in his music. It's as if being a great musician is of now interest to an audience, but being a bastard and a junkie is.

Despite the cliched plot and absence of insight the lead performances have be justifiable acclaimed. Both River Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon bring their characters to life and give them more depth and empathy than the script deserves. It is the acting equivalent for feeding 5000 with a fish and a slice of bread. And while the ever-so happy ending rings false, with Cash acting the bad man but being portrayed an angel, the acting and the music carry the film through. Just don't expect to learn about the man inside.

DVD: Once Upon A Time In The Midlands

2006-06-27T22:37:00.000+01:00

Once Upon A Time In The Midlands bills itself as a tinned spaghetti western. It could also bill itself as awarding British director Shane Meadows attempt to make a jolly mainstream film. Yet despite the number of billings you could give it the film doesn't know what it is trying to be.

It starts out heavy on the Western parody with Ricky Tomlinson being a country music obsessed father and Robert Carlyle being the stranger with trouble not far behind him blowing into town. However the pace and energy of the knockabout opening soon dissipates into a turgid kitchen sink drama with the characters too stereotypical to draw the audiences sympathy.

The profusion of faces from British TV only aid the feeling of the script creating archetypes rather than full drawn characters whilst the jokes are too sparse to make this an effective comedy. Whilst a film that deals with common British life is something that should be welcomed, Once Upon A Time In The Midlands is a misfire in director Shane Meadows cannon. Thankfully he has since found his footing with Dead Man's Shoes.

DVD: Stealth

2006-05-29T09:47:00.000+01:00

Stealth is a high technology Top Gun film that's stupid with a capital S T O O. In fact it would probably make a satisfying double header with Team America World Police. The basic plot is that group of crack US Navy pilots are trained to fly advanced experimental planes. Then are then told that there is a fourth plane that is flown by an advanced computer brain. they call it Eddie but you may as well call it HAL.

Before you know HAL, sorry, Eddie, has used it's artificial intelligence to learn from the American pilots. What it has learnt it is to disobey orders and blow things up regardless of the collateral damage. Before long 1000 Asian farmers and the entirety of Pakistan is covered in nuclear fall-out, but the generals still think they can keep things under wraps. The energy of the films fist pumping patriotism drains after the 90 minute mark with a pointless coda involving the destruction of North / South Korea border to try and save the heroes girlfriend leaving empty explosions punctuating the absurd situations and by the end you are longing for the wit and excitement of Maverick, Goose and Ice Man.

Music: The Best Of 1996-2002 by Hefner

2006-05-15T22:24:00.000+01:00

When they proclaimed themselves "Britain's Biggest Small Band" Hefner effectively wrote their own epitaph. One of many bands championed to a cult following by John Peel they never troubled the mainstream with songs that feel like a spikier Belle And Sebastian.

Their high point was second album The Fidelity Years, which is well represented on this retrospective. The Hymn For The Cigarettes is a stomping indie anthem that tells a tale failing love through fag manufacturers and contains the gorgeous chorus refrain "how can she love me when she doesn't even love the cinema I love". Slower tracks The Hymn For The Alcohol and Don't Flake Out On Me showcase the raw emotion of singer Darren Hayman's voice, a wonky taste that once acquired allows you to glory in the crystal clear diction.

Later albums continued to turn out moving odes to life outside the norm such as The Greedy Ugly People whilst The Day That Thatcher Dies still shocks with it's brazen celebration that 'the witch is dead'. The late electronic experimentations capture a band becoming bored and straining for something and losing their special touch. Despite it's 20 track length there are few tracks here that are anything but a joy to those who like their music wonky, witty and independently minded.

DVD: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

2006-05-15T20:20:00.000+01:00

There are few films that are too clever for their own good but many that are ruined by being nowhere near as clever as they think they are. The tongue in cheek narration that guides us through Kiss Kiss Bang Bang often veers towards smug and self congratulatory ground but the sharpness of the script and the frequency of one liners means that you will end up amused rather than annoyed.

Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black has taken what appears to be a pulpy noir detective novel and covered the cliche ridden set-up and far fetched plot with a fast past knock-about script that sees small time crook Robert Downey Jr end up partnered with Val Kilmer's butch gay private eye. Nothing really makes much sense during the film and like the best of Raymond Chandler's work by the end you don't even care whodunnit, but laugh you will.

DVD: Ghost In The Shell

2006-05-07T22:12:00.000+01:00

Ghost In The Shell is a mid 1990's Japanese Manga animation that was considered groundbreaking at the time due to it's use of computer generated images. A decade it still stands a benchmark of animated cinema, now forming the link between Blade Runner and The Matrix.

The film centres on two government cyborgs who are attempting to track down a hacker called The Puppet Master who gets into people's minds and uses them as unknowing assassins. Alongside heart pounding action sequences it muses on the nature of existence in a way that makes The Matrix look like a primary school philosophy lesson. Whipping through at a taught 85 minutes it never pauses for breath and seems as cutting edge today as it did on release.

Music: The Black Hole by Misty's Big Adventure

2006-04-25T23:24:00.000+01:00

Misty's Big Adventure are a curious Birmingham band based around one Grandmaster Gareth. At full power they number nine and make an avalanche of noise that recalls Madness and Talking Heads collaborating at an anarchic, but wildly enjoyable party.

Most songs have a strong ska base but the offbeat lyrics and repeated musical phrases recall the best of 80s art rock. She Fills The Spaces has a shimmering and ambiguous depth while Never Stops Never Sleeps Never Rests is a full blown nonsense stop. Whether you feel like moving you body or not, this music demands it and there is even something for the brain to chew on too.

Book: Words And Music by Paul Morley

2006-04-25T23:19:00.000+01:00

A book like words and music requires no review. Read the first two pages and you will either fling it against the wall in frustrating at it's pretentiousness and arrogance or be drawn in by it's free ranging narrative. Veteran music writer and general social commentator Paul Morley takes time out form appearing on "The top 100 compilation shows" to trace the link between Alvin Lucier's avant garde piece 'I Am Sitting In A Room' and the pure pop of Kylie Minogue's 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'.

Along the way Morley references more obscure artists than any casual reader is likely to have heard of and launches into tangents that stray far up his own behind. But beyond the writing for writing's sake there are some interesting insights into the DNA of modern music that reward the committed reader.

DVD: Azumi

2006-04-25T23:14:00.000+01:00

Azumi is a medieval action film. 10 assassins have been trained since their youth to take out the greatest threats to peace in their country. Before they set out on their missions their master sets them one final test. They must each slay their closest friend, leaving only 5 assassins to serve the mission.

Despite it's comic book origins and it's cute female lead, Azumi is a dark and intelligent action movie that muses on morality and loneliness. As the most powerful of the assassins young Azumi draws the eye during the fight sequences but the scenes where she tries to understand a world she has been kept from as she grew up learning combat techniques are equally powerful.

Book: The Art Of Falling Apart by Mark Dawson

2005-09-13T19:17:00.000+01:00

Dystopia are an industrial rock band on the verge of breaking America. However despite a rapturously received Las Vegas showcase gig they are falling apart. The singer wants to go solo despite his inability to write songs, the guitarist is depressed and the manager is looking to sell them all out.

Ex Hacienda DJ Mark Dawson's debut novel is at it's best detailing the excesses of the rock and roll lifestyle. Whilst the middle flags a little due to multiple narrators and a little too much back story The Art Of Falling Apart is a creditable rock and roll page turner.

Music: The Best Party Ever by The Boy Least Likely To

2005-09-01T22:39:00.000+01:00

Many have often wondered whether instruments like the recorder or the xylophone are ever actually played outside of school music rooms. The Best Party Ever confirms that this does happen and that they can be used to great effect.

The Boy Least Likely To are a twee proposition both in name and style with their album cover showing childlike drawings of animals playing instruments. They sound like Belle And Sebastian abandoning The Velvet Underground in favour of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. On songs like Be Gentle With Me, Hugging My Grudge and I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon To Your Star they combine bouncy castle melodies with naive but endearing lyrics that never stray into ironic territory. Elsewhere they waddle into some wonky blues and gentle folk. The album will either charm the socks off you or drive you nuts. I stand in the barefoot category.

Pick Of The Month: August

2005-08-31T23:12:00.000+01:00

Though Stubbs And The Horse contains some moments of breathtaking genius it is sustained musical quality that wins out this month with the Shortwave Set's album The Debt Collection pipping The Postal Service. The Debt Collection is a joyous concoction of lilting folk and cut and paste production that retains it's freshness after many sessions.

DVD: Ripley's Game

2005-08-31T23:09:00.000+01:00

A truly uninspired case of cliches by the numbers. John Malkovich is a civilised psychopath, Ray Winstone is the cockney wideboy and Dougray Scott is the refined Brit who can't keep up. There are sparce pleasures to be had from this sedate thriller but given the cast and source material you'd expect much more than to be roused from apathy occasionally by parts of Morricone's score. A truly tired sequel that should have been called The Talentless Mr Ripley Film.

DVD: The Ladykillers

2005-08-31T23:05:00.000+01:00

Are the Coen brothers becoming more mainstream or is the mainstream becoming more Coen brothers. Whichever is the case The Ladykillers, like the underrated Intolerable Cruelty before it, shows the Coen brothers producing a oddball laugh out loud film that should appeal to all without overly diluting their trademark quirkiness.

Tom Hanks shows that comedy is still his forte with an inspired turn as the verbose professor masterminding a heist from an old ladies basement. His cronies may snatch many of the laughs but Irma P Hall steals the film as the old lady who won't take any back chat. This isn't in the same class as films like The Big Lebowski and O Brother but is a still a fine lightweight comedy.

DVD: Bonnie And Clyde

2005-08-29T22:11:00.000+01:00

Glamorous criminals also demand our sympathy in the movies. Whether it's for random acts of kindness, like letting a kindly looking sole keep their spare change while you clean out a bank, or that you are stuck with people you dislike and can't get away from because you are all on the run for the law. Mainly it's because after committing a list of crimes long enough to make War And Peace feel inadequate you start to wish you had a quiet life.

Bonnie And Clyde is a seminal film in the crime genre. It's still looks glorious and packs a number of thrills along the way. However the characters don't lend themselves to empathy so when the final shots are fired there is a sense of closure, and nothing more.