“It’s the emotionlessness of so many violent movies that I’m becoming anxious about, not the rare violent movies (“Bonnie & Clyde”, “The Godfather”, “Mean Streets”) that make us care about the characters and what happens to them. A violent movie that intensifies our experience of violence is very different from a movie in which acts of violence are perfunctory. I’m only guessing, and maybe this emotionlessness means little, but, if I can trust my instincts at all, there’s something deeply wrong about anyone’s taking for granted the disassociation that this carnage without emotion represents…”
Pauline Kael, from her review of “Magnum Force” (January 14, 1974)
Cinema Arete 