Bonnie's Kids (1972)

A solid piece of sexploitation from 1972, Bonnie's Kids, as the trailer indicates, focuses firmly upon the charms of its two female stars. Styled as a neo-noir chase thriller, it sees them spend a lot of the film on the run, initially after the older of the eponymous girls kills their step father to prevent him raping her younger sister, then from their uncle's heavies after he involves them in a money laundering scheme, with the older sister absconding with a cash delivery.  She also involves a hapless private eye, who was meant to receive the money, who ends up on the run with her.  Various double crosses ensue before it moves to a downbeat ending.  The film is moved along at a brisk pace by director Arthur Marks, (who was later to direct a number of Blaxploitation pictures, including Detroit 9000 (1973), Bucktown (1975) and Friday Foster (1975)), despite a somewhat meandering plot and an uncertain tone.  It's helped by some nicely photographed desert locations in Arizona and Texas and a decent cast, which includes Tiffany Bolling and Robin Mattson as the titular kids, Alex Rocco and Timothy Brown as the heavies and Scott Brady as the uncle.  Leo Gordon also puts in a memorable, if short lived, performance as the step father: spewing bile and misogyny before being gunned down.

The film's biggest weakness is a lack of truly sympathetic characters.  Both girls are depicted as borderline psychopaths - the younger girl's utter lack of emotional reaction to her aunt's suicide, for instance, or her easy abandonment of her sister at the film's end.  While it might be argued that their lack of regular emotional reactions, their easy acceptance of the use of violence and general amorality might be a result of their abusive relationship with their step father, the film seems to go out of its way to imply that they are simply 'bad girls'.  Indeed, it seems determined to impose a somewhat antiquated cinematic moral code to them.  In the case of the older girl, the script appears to want to impose the traditional movie code that characters who break the law can't be allowed to benefit from their actions.  While her shooting of her step father might be justified, thereby gaining her audience sympathy, the film later contrives to have her gun down a police officer without cause, as well as being instrumental in the death of another character, effectively turning audience sympathies away from her.  As far the younger sister is concerned, it is established early on that, despite being only fifteen, she's an object of lust for most of the male population of her home town, with them gathering outside her bedroom window to surreptitiously watch her undressing.  (An unsettling scene, as the audience are effectively made complicit in ogling the bare breasts of an underage girl).  Not only is it implied that she flashes her breasts at the window because she knows that she's being watched, but, by extension, that her promiscuous means that she is 'asking for it' with regard to the attempted rape by her step father.

Overall, though, Bonnie's Kids stands a decently made piece of entertainment, firmly aimed at a drive in audience and bereft of any pretensions: it not only knows that it is exploitative but also knows its target audience and delivers the goods.  There's enough action to keep the film moving along and the two lead actresses are undoubtedly very attractive, (even if one is underage), something the film makes the most of.  Not only that, but it evokes its era perfectly, presenting a flavourful slice of the early seventies in both its look and its sounds.