Review of Bananas

Bananas (1971)
7/10
Early Woody Allen, His Nebbish Years
11 November 2014
When a bumbling New Yorker (Woody Allen) is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.

Woody Allen's third film, as well as his third and last with co-writer Mickey Rose. Although Allen may be the more familiar name of the two, Rose actually had a very impressive career: after this film, he became a regular writer for the Johnny Carson show.

This is the young, energetic Woody, the one who is a bit more zany than he went on to become, with more stuttering and not quite the level of verbosity he achieved by the 1970s. Definitely some golden years for the man, and a period his fans love.

What is interesting is how this film predates the Reagan years by quite a bit, and even predates most of the 1970s. Were people in 1971 thinking after left-leaning revolutionaries in South America? Perhaps not, but it is something that has only grown in years, making the film somehow more relevant.
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