Bonnie's Kids

Family bonds were meant to last a lifetime. But in the movie "Bonnie's Kids", it's a whole new story. Two sisters Ellie(Tiffany Bolling) and Myra(Robin Mattson) are stuck in a town where nothing exciting goes. They lost their mother, Bonnie. They have a stepfather who's a total jerk. He crossed the line with Myra when she was on the phone, and tried to rape her. Kellie comes home in time, and blitzes him with a shotgun. They would later travel to Texas, find their uncle who works for a fashion company, and takes the two under his wing. Unbeknownst to them, he's involved in shady business. If you think that's bad, the uncle's wife Diana(Lenore Stevens) goes through enough abuse from him, she takes a liking towards Myra, while Ellie is away on business. Ellie meets the private detective, and falls for him. Then the sister bonding begins to break slowly between them. When Diana began to comfort Myra, she takes it to a whole new level. And in that case, Myra wasn't cool with it. She berates and exploits her hard and fast. It was funny when she said, "You're Disgusting!" after Diana shot herself. Ellie wanted to have a better life, but her greed just got the better of her. A very classic movie, with a lot of humor to go along with. A little exploitive to say the least. 2 out of 5 stars

"Bonnie's Kids" is – plain and simply put – one of the absolute greatest and most entertaining exploitation movies to have emerged from the entire 70s decade; period! This movie is a totally bonkers and exhilarating thrill ride from start to finish and, with a little bit of crazy imagination, you could even state that this is bizarrely unhinged fairy-tale! Two beautiful young "princesses" named Ellie & Myra, sisters and daughters of the infamous Bonnie who's dead even before the movie begins and only referred to verbally, live with their violent and abusive stepfather. When he attempts to assault Myra, Ellie blasts him away with her shotgun and hides the body in the cellar. The two girls subsequently go on the road and head for El Paso, where they plan to live with their dubious Uncle Ben; owner of a nudie magazine and a notorious crime boss on the side. While young Myra develops a special bond with Ben's frustrated and oppressed lesbian wife Diana, Ellie gets asked by her uncle to do an errand. She has to go and pick up a package from the private detective that her uncle's henchmen have recruited, but she and Larry fall in love and discover that the package contains a gigantic amount of money in cash! They intend to keep the money, but find themselves relentlessly pursued by Ben's henchmen. Admittedly, this brief description makes the film sound rather ordinary but I guarantee that this isn't the case! The 105 minutes of running time are literally chock-full of versatile events that are alternately comical (the sleazy salesman) and brutish (the nihilistic killing of the young motel couple), as well as plenty of road-movie styled action and sleazy coming-of-age themes. But the most remarkable thing about "Bonnie's Kids" is undoubtedly the colorful cast of characters! Every single character is unique, and yet they all have something in common: every character – from the two protagonist girls to the most insignificant supportive role - is a totally amoral and self-centered individual. Myra doesn't care about anybody but herself and shamelessly uses her luscious young body to discover life, while Ellie quickly profiles herself as a stone cold and carnivorous killer bee. Then you have Ben's two goons Eddy and Digger, respectively played by exploitation veteran Alex Rocco and the Afro-wearing Timothy Brown. Like another reviewer already cleverly pointed out, it might very well be that Quentin Tarantino modeled his legendary characters Vincent and Jules (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson) from "Pulp Fiction" after these two! Their looks and personal behaviors are similar, but they also spend their days chatting in their car, sipping drinks in cheap diners and ruthlessly executing people when necessary! Considering Tarantino's well-known taste in movies, I'm 200% convinced that "Bonnie's Kids" is a beloved favorite of his. Writer/director Arthur Marks was particularly specialized in Blaxploitation cinema and directed a handful of them ("J.D's Revenge", "Bucktown", "Friday Foster"…) but "Bonnie's Kids" is undeniably his best work: a fantastically deranged, unscrupulous, energetic and insanely imaginative exploitation masterpiece!

*edit: I just read in the trivia section that Tarantino is indeed a tremendous fan of this film and even paid tribute to it in "Pulp Fiction" by naming one of the segments "The Bonnie Situation". I didn't even think of that!

I've been watching quite a lot of arty-farty foreign flicks of late... so what better way to chill out and take out a break from all the pretentious posturing, than to take on the sort of movie that would have had the drive ins packed 40 years ago. You have a couple of gorgeous babes, senseless violence throughout, casual racism, rampant homophobia, a ramshackle story which goes in every direction and gratuitous nudity as a given. What more could you ask for?

Well, perhaps an ending which will p*ss a lot of people off... GUARANTEED. And maybe they could play the one tune they have on the soundtrack slightly less than every other scene. Other than that, you'll get what you expect. A passable time waster, but don't expect it to be too distracting when y'all smooching with ya babe in the front seat. Don't forget to brush your teeth!! Or at least chew minty gum...... 5/10

In the world of B cinema, they don't come much better than BONNIE'S KIDS...the few unavoidable shortcomings of its low budget are equalized by a seamy pulp narrative which is briskly paced and sexy as hell. Ambitiously played by a cast of highly capable lower-tier performers, all of whom should have been better utilized in Hollywood, this unassuming little offering stands as one of the crown jewels of 70s drive-in fodder.

Noir-ish story involves two young sisters who ice their lecherous stepfather and beeline to the Los Angeles home of their wealthy mob-boss uncle. Indurated by their difficult upbringing, but fiercely determined to get ahead, the girls are quick to realize the prepotency of their supple young bodies. One of them seduces their closet-lesbian aunt, while the other ropes-in a hard-luck private dick who's been hired by some shady suits to intercede the transit of a "special package". What ensues is a gritty, violent crime story with more flurried excitation, concupiscent titillation, and shifty maneuvers than a Crisco coated Naked Twister marathon.

On a scale of 1-10, BONNIE'S KIDS gets a solid 8.5...right up there with its theatrical release co-feature THE CANDY SNATCHERS. Both films are B classics which approach dispiriting subject matter with an edgy, sardonic tongue-in-cheek. Recommended.

This movie is really good at accentuating how pretty its women are, and how sleazy its men are, and at that mostly outright predatory. To emphasize how good it is at these things, it gives us fairly regular shots of women topless, with additional shots of women in scant clothing, and even fifteen-year old star Robin Mattson is not excluded. To much the same point, even men's own family members are not safe from their predation, and any cops we see in passing are just as rotten. My, my, if all such sleaze were piled any higher then this would be a film about conservative politicians! Somewhere amidst all the dubiousness - further including some deviousness from the female characters, and pointedly, cheekily counterbalanced with very bouncy music - there is a plot about sisters Ellie and Myra looking out for each other, and eventually some shenanigans about dirty money. I say "eventually" because in a runtime of a little over 100 minutes, we're basically halfway through before that plot more or less begins to take shape, and longer still before that plot begins to truly progress. Up to that point, and still more past it, 'Bonnie's kids' is more of a loose assemblage of characters toying with each other in one way or another.

Look, now Ellie and Larry are dancing and giving each other eyes! Well, isn't that just so sweet. Will this turn out to be more important than it's made out to be in the moment? You bet! Conversely, Myra just disappears from our screens for a surprisingly long time.

The premise sounded interesting. I won't argue with filmmaker Arthur Marks, the women are indeed beautiful. The music is catchy and enjoyable, whatever the precise mood it's embracing. The cast give committed, commendable performances, with Mattson and even more so Tiffany Bolling surely standing out most as Myra and Ellie. This is well made in most every regard, including the editing and cinematography, the costume design, the hair and makeup, and so on. I like the narrative in and of itself, and the scene writing is fairly strong. I do like the ideas on hand, including the characterizations, and in fact the material is primed for a rather dark, absorbing, stimulating neo-noir thriller. I think the whole would be far more solid if Marks weren't so lackadaisical about developing that narrative, and if he didn't shove most of the substance into the relatively small corner of the last two-fifths. Very much accentuating the point: just as the overall sleaze is most predominant in the first forty-five to sixty minutes, and the unhurried storytelling, as the plot truly kicks off in the latter half, Marks left himself so much to do and show in such comparatively little time that the pacing seems rushed, failing to give scenes, beats, and ideas all due time to resonate. Oops.

On another note, we can perhaps accept the misogyny, otherwise touches of sexism, and a racial slur as being part and parcel of the saga, and the figures it presents to us. A homophobic exchange of dialogue, however, is plainly unnecessary and earns a demerit.

Anyway, yes, the pacing shifts from "la, la-laa, la-laa" to "go, go, go," and similarly, the tone shifts from "do, dee-do, dee-do" to "oh man, it's going down, now." I'll grant that this tends to be the narrative structure in most any work of fiction, but the shifts here are glaringly unnatural, not to mention forced and brusque owing to Marks' direction. Carson Whitsett's music similarly becomes more intense and grabbing, and it's superb in and of itself - but again the disparity is noteworthy in an unfortunate manner. The first long stretch that traipses along needed to be tightened; the back end needed more room to breathe as the seediness explodes into jarring violence with a swift gait. With all this firmly in mind, I still believe the picture is enjoyable and worthwhile, and it's better than not. Really, at its core this is flush with potential that should have let it stand tall beside its genre brethren. It's just regrettable, therefore, that the faults stand out so vividly, almost threatening to outshine the value 'Bonnie's kids' boasts. By all means, check this out if you have the chance to watch, for it earns a fair recommendation, and may you like it more than I did. Why, I myself want to like it more than I do. Would that the two unequal halves had been treated more carefully.