Natural Born Killers (1994)

One of my all time faves...
What I love the most about NBK isn't the cast. I believe that too often, people see the cast and are disappointed in the movie. What really hooked me was the visuals of the film. It isn't like every other film, and when Quentin Tarantino's well runs dry, I'd love to see his version of the film. I really liked the varying camera shots and the animation. It does have kind of a music video feel to it. I also love the fact that something is ALWAYS going on, and it holds my attention, which is a good thing, seeing that I get tired of movies easily. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of what American society has become over time, and truly appreciate the point of the movie that it tries to drive home. This film is a little cerebral, and may take more than one session to appreciate the film. It is definitely a love/hate film. Me personally, I love it. To the NBK haters out there, definitely give the film another try. I didn't really like Fear and Loathing when I first saw it, but I LOVE that movie. If you nitpick every part of the film, you have ruined it for yourself, because now there's nothing to enjoy about it, because it has been roughly criticized. Just sit back and enjoy the film. If you're into conventional film, and you want to see a dime a dozen picture, you have come to the wrong place. Sure it's a blood bath, but what's to be expected from a film called Natural Born Killers?

I'd give it a WARNING - DO NOT BUY if that were available
Natural Born Killers DVD


Natural Born Killers is so bad that I just had to review it. I normally don't review things I don't like, but this is sooooo bad I just had to. Oliver Stone must have been smoking something to make this farce. It's sort of a Bonnie and Clyde on Acid.

NBK is a film that has a lot of twists to it when it comes to direction and overall approach. The film itself is told in a variety of styles and ways that includes hints of indie, underground, documentary, sickish cartoons, blockbuster action, and pop culture power.

In NBK, we are introduced to Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Molly (Juliette Lewis) who are two lovers on the run who also seem to be in the habit of shot gunning down pretty much anyone that gets in their way. Their characters are superbly told through the conviction that Woody and Juliette's efforts produce. A couple who has a lot of issues, but that also seem to have just as good an understanding of modern day civilization as the next guy. Through the various stops at diners and gas stations that continue to leave bodies in the wake, they start to become famous. Through the local media outlets to nationally televised programs and Popular Magazine Syndications, their story begins to develop into that of legend, and a popular one at that.

Stone's film is not as black and white as many have said it is. It's not just about "violence", but also the media's glamorization of it. It also touches on aspects of tragic youth that can ultimately change a person's life forever. From dialogue similar to Charles Manson interviews to quick quips of Waco, Rodney King, and The Menendez brothers, the film never lets up its image intense onslaught of murder, mayhem, and madness.

Not recommended for anyone. Normally when you buy a DVD you want to watch it more than once. I can't imagine anyone wanting to do that.

Gunner January, 2008

What?
Mickey (Harrelson) and Mallory (Lewis) like to kill things. Animal, people, whatever, you name it: they don't want it to live; pure and simple. Mallory's incestuous abusive father (Dangerfield): DEAD; Mallory's subordinate mother: DEAD; anyone that has tried to pick up on Mallory since she learned kung fu: DEAD; and then there are the others that they killed just because. Sound pointless? It is.
Natural Born Killers claims to be a film that follows the rise and rise of the media using a journalistic fear of death as its base. It isn't. Natural Born Killers does not claim to be a deep and probing insight into the psyche of a serial killer. It isn't. Natural Born Killers could have been a mildly entertaining action movie without any pseudo-philosophical mumbling. It isn't. While watching the film it became more and more perplexing as to just what Oliver Stone was hoping to achieve in making this. Failing as both informative high art and low brow entertainment the film has no discernible audience.
The America travelled by Mickey and Mallory during the film's first half is populated by hollow shells and vague ideas of characters that are neither likeable nor believable, inducing no sense of sympathy or loss when they are inevitably killed. The only character possessing any backstory whatsoever is Mallory and it is one rife with abuse and familial dysfunction, however, it is not presented in order to give depth to or flesh out her character, but rather it is a vain and failed attempt to justify her later actions as a mass murderer, characterising Mickey as a valiant hero when he murders her parents. In a speech delivered by Mickey to an annoying TV personality (Downey Jr.) he claims that "Murder is pure" citing its abundance in the natural world, justifying his urge to kill as coming from the animal within. In a black comedy, this sort of skewed morality would be humorous, however the level of reverence that Natural Born Killers gives to this type of verbal diarrhoea is utterly ridiculous. The film is not funny or at all insightful.
In an obviously self-conscious irony, Mickey and Mallory are portrayed as the sanest people in the film. The fast talking prison warden (Jones) and the psychotic detective that put Mickey and Mallory into prison are equally as psychotic as the killers themselves. The fact that the media can make profits from broadcasting the easily discarded views of the criminally insane is not one that was lost on me, however Natural Born Killers does not take place in the real world; it takes place in a fantasy land purely of Oliver Stone's devising. In the real world a ridiculous quote about the pureness of murder would be refuted and stomped upon by the anchorman to assert the moral superiority of both himself and the middle-classes that he represents. In Natural Born Killers this quote is enough to convince the anchorman and the entire nation not only of the killer's righteousness but of their need to support them by picketing outside court appearances with "WE (HEART) MICKEY AND MALLORY" signs and personally aid them in a prison break respectively. What absolute bulls**t.
For all of its slick direction and competent use of popular contemporary music I felt like I should have liked Natural Born Killers a lot more than I did. Ultimately, however, the film is just mindless. It seeks to lampoon America's obsession with the psychotic and the ability of the media to create that which it skews however this is not done with any form of subtlety. The film instead provides a veritable bludgeon over the head through a few horrifically out of place monologues and a comic-book style of directing that compensates for, more than it aids the storytelling. It is pure style over substance.
Failed symbolism and a surreal atmosphere do not even come close to compensating for Natural Born Killers many glaring flaws.