Overall Rating
  Awesome: 36.57%
Worth A Look: 23.43%
Average: 10.29%
Pretty Bad: 13.14%
Total Crap: 16.57%
8 reviews, 127 user ratings
|
|
| Natural Born Killers |
by Brian McKay
"Oliver Stone is a Natural-Born Hypocrite"
|
My first beef is that the title is self-contradictory, since the film implies that killers are made, not "natural born". My second beef is that I'm sick of Juliette Lewis, who plays the same skanky, retarted psycho-whore in every film she's in. My third beef is that when it comes to Stone's message about the media glorifying violence, his idea of subtlety is to put a velvet Crown Royale sack over a hammer before he smacks you in the face with it repeatedly. Media glorifying violence? Hey, Oliver, you've written and/or directed some of the most violent films in Hollywood, including this one. I'd say that makes you part of the fucking problem, Pal!All this is not to say that Stone doesn't have his moments of brilliance. Some of his earlier work, like Salvador, Talk Radio, or Platoon, though equally heavy-handed, were still quite good. But then he had to go and do this MTV acid trip of a movie, followed by that bloated mess known as Any Given Sunday. Buddy, what gives?
Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) is a white trash meat delivery man with a violent disposition on the count of his drunken daddy and mamma used to beat him real regular-like and he's seen too much violence on T.V. (and just in case you miss that intimation, Oliver splashes the words "Too Much T.V." across Mickey's chest later on - thwap!). He meets Mallory (Juliette Lewis), a troubled teen whose father (Rodney Dangerfield, who is surprisingly convincing as a right bastard) abuses and rapes her on a nightly basis. Mickey decides to "liberate" Mallory by smashing dad's head in, then tying mom to the bed and lighting her on fire. From then on, they're a regular Bonnie and Clyde, tearing up the country and shooting victims indiscriminately (along with the occasional kidnap and rape). In order to spread their reputation, they usually opt to leave one survivor behind to tell the story.
Mickey and Mallory soon gain a bizarre celebrity status, as teens around the world rave about how "cool" they are, saying such idiotic things as "Don't get me wrong, we have respect for human life, but if we were gonna be serial killers . . . we'd wanna be Mickey and Mallory". Meanwhile, two media whores are hot on their trail - one a cop named Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore), who just published his memoirs "Scagnetti on Scagnetti" (sounds like incestuous Italian porn) and is hungry for more of the limelight. Meanwhile, Tabloid T.V. reporter Wayne Gayle (Robert Downey Jr., sporting the worst Aussie accent since Monty Python's "Bruce" sketch) wants to use M&M to boost the ratings on his own sleaze exploitation program. Both of these lowlifes are, of course, no better than the ones they are pursuing (Scagnetti casually murders a hooker along the way, and Gayle actually joins in with M&M's killing spree), and the mass-murdering couple is merely a tool to garnish more media exposure.
The film is a bombardment of vivid colors and bizarre imagery - imagine the Manson Family on the Willy Wonka boat ride through Marilyn Manson's Drug Hat video, and you'll get the idea. Violent film and television images are always appearing in the background, and flashbacks of M&M's abused childhoods are common to the point of tediousness. Yes, they evoke sympathy to a point, but Stone just keeps bombarding with that imagery over and over again until the viewer just grows numb, then apathetic. And while all the strange imagery is fun to watch when you're high, it certainly doesn't lend anything towards creating a coherent story or a compelling message.
While Mickey waxes philosophical about being a born killer, Stone seems to be saying that it's actually all somebody else's fault. It's the abusive parents or the media or too much T.V. So, let me get this straight, by making a film full of senseless violence, you are decrying the media's portrayal of senseless violence? Why, that's just fucking genius . . . or so he would have us believe. Look, buddy, I like violence in my movies just fine. If you suddenly have a problem with it, Mister "I directed Platoon and wrote Scarface", then start making romantic comedies or some shit. Go direct My Big Fat Greek Divorce, but don't get preachy with me.
While it's not the most wretched thing I've ever seen, it's just hard to take it very seriously. There are some noteworthy extra scenes on the DVD, including an alternate ending that seemed more appropriate, and a hilarious two-minute rambling diatribe on Mickey and Malory by Denis Leary which was "cut for pacing" (too bad, because it would have been the best damn scene in the whole film). There are also some decent tracks on the OST, including Nine Inch Nails' Burn.
Drive-In Triple Feature My Life with the Thrill Kill Kouple picks for Natural Born Killers:
Shit, take your pick. You've got True Romance (A film that Quentin Tarantino wrote, in addition to Natural Born Killers - though he publicly disowned Natural Born after he saw what Stone was doing to his script). Or you could go with The Doom Generation, a crapfest about a girl and two guys on a cross-country menage a tois killing spree, starring Rose McGowan and her tits. Or there's David Lynch's Wild at Heart, or that other movie with Juliette Lewis as the killer's psycho-bitch girlfriend, Kalifornia. Then there's Love and a .45, and a slew of other indie films all trying to rewrite the same Homicidal Bonnie and Clyde formula, some better than others.I'll go back to the theater for another Oliver Stone movie when he puts down the crack pipe and climbs off of his high horse. In the meantime, let's hope he doesn't try to do a remake of his 1981 "classic" THE HAND, one of the worst horror movies ever. That would put me off of him for good.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=761&reviewer=258
originally posted: 11/14/02 12:34:13
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
This film is available for download or online viewing at CinemaNow.com For more in the CinemaNow.com series, click here.
|
 |
USA
26-Aug-1994 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
06-Oct-1994 (R)
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
