Vintage

Whereas, Clock Work trail blazed new territory with violence doubling back on society and holding the individual merciless to it, NBK wallows in violent titillation for the sake of admiring itself.  But, then maybe Oliver Stone, who directed Natural Born Killlers, wanted the film to be something different then Clockwork.  If so, it was a goal that was never accomplished.  Besides the story, I found the style of the movie annoying too. 

Natural Born Killers employs a wide range of camera angles, filters, lenses and special effects. Much of the movie is told via parodies of television shows, including a scene presented in the style of a sitcom about a dysfunctional family, though props must be given to the late Rodney Dangerfield, who seemed to play the part of an abusive father a little to well.

Commercials which were commonly on the air at the time of the film's release make brief, intermittent appearances, which I guess mean they too serve as fuel for the psychos and indict corporate America as well.  The funny thing is this technique is really cool in the hands of Quentin Tarantino.  He seems to get this feeling right in films that come after Natural Born Killers.  Stone tried it and it just didn’t work for him.  Why?  Good question.  I suspect it is because Tarantino finds humor in the mirror as well. 

Should I mention a little bit about the plot.  The flick centers around two sociopaths, Mickey and Mallory that traverse the Southwestern U.S. simply killing everybody in their path.  They usually spare one person to “let them live to tell the tale.”  Oh, that is so freaking cool they let one person live.  Doesn’t that seem so wicked and awesome?
All along the way, kids across the world cheer on as the body count goes higher and higher.  Woody Harrelson as Mickey, bald with round-rim glasses and Juliet Lewis as his slut girlfriend Mallory are the embodiment of redneck beatniks who take the flower out of the gun barrel when it is aimed at an unsuspecting person right before they blow their fucking heads off. 

It is clear Mickey and Mallory are rednecks, sexually abused as children.  Their lives are a mishmash of flashbacks of pain and suffering.  There is no alpha hero in this movie nor does Juliette Lewis fill the bill from a tough female perspective.  This is a movie about two losers, societal misfits that like to kill for the pleasure of Oliver Stone, but to him they are anti-heroes. 

On their trail of bloodshed is Jack Scagnetti (Sizemore) a cop who is just as an abusive killer as they are.  Eventually, when he catches Mickey and Mallory and puts them behind bars, they are afforded an interview with Wayne Gale (Downey, Jr.) a tabloid show reporter for American Maniacs.  They are led through the prison by a sadistic warden Dwight McCluskey (Jones).

Now why do I not think there is any greater social mirror here other than to say NBK is pure visceral titillation?  I think, because at every opportunity, Oliver Stone attempts to inject shock humor into this film, which doesn’t quite work for the most part.  There is one point where Mallory thinks the gas station attendant is Mickey so she invites the young man to go down on her as she sits back on the hood of a hot rod.  She then gets pissed off and shoots the kid complaining it was the worst head she had ever gotten. 

I did find the Indian tie-in interesting.  Here they stumble upon a poor Indian guy living in like a teepee house.  He takes in Mickey and Mallory and tells them the story of the snake.  He tells them of a woman who once befriended a snake and then the snake bit her one day.  As she lay dying, she asked the snake why you had done this.  The snake said, “I told you bitch.  I am a snake.”  Once again, we have humor that to me misses the mark in this film because it tries too hard to be stylish and cool.   Tarantino accomplishes such feats naturally.  

At first I thought it was cool when the Indian was talking to him and the words “demon” appeared on his shirt.  Then, I thought it was lame when it cut back and the words “Too much TV” appeared there in its stead. 

But, I kind of liked the whole set up and the mysticism of the Indian, which I thought was a nice Southwestern U.S. touch. 
There is one other part where Wayne Gale (Downey, Jr.) and Warden McCluskey (Jones) are meandering their way through a sea of inmates on the way to the jail cell of Mickey and Mallory.  The acting by Downey, Jr. and Tommy Lee Jones is top notch and a pleasure to watch.  There is a brief interlude as Warden McCluskey applies a pair of pliers to the nose of an inmate.

I privately think Quentin Tarantino, whom they say was so angry at how his script was altered he didn’t want his name listed as a screen writer (he got a story by instead), learned about what not to do when setting out to make a violent movie, which doubles as a comical distorted mirror on society’s ills and the dark side of humanity.    

And then if even the film is taken on the level which Oliver Stone believes it was intended, I still wonder what we have gained then by having achieved this rarefied insight?  The funny thing is I believe Quentin Tarantino went on to make several movies that hit the point Oliver Stone tried to reach with Natural Born Killers.  Heck, even the beginning of From Dusk to Dawn has some elements of Mickey and Mallory as Tarantino and George Clooney drive to the south of the border killing people at random (that is until they run into a vampire bar).

Maybe this is a distinctly 1990s angst picture right at the height of the grunge rock movement too.  Maybe that is reading too much into this film.   But, I think NBK’s true failure lies in portraying everyone as rotten from Mickey and Mallory to the teenagers that cheer them on. 

This film has nothing nice to say about humanity and though maybe there are elements of Stone’s insecurity for sure in many people, there is nothing to redeem anyone in any way throughout Natural Born Killers.  I don’t think us as humans mind being told we are capable of savagery and to a certain extent told that we are mostly idiots, slaves to mass media and pop culture, but you must be sympathetic to us somehow.  After all, we had to climb this high on the food chain all by ourselves.  Natural Born Killers makes the fault of showing no sympathy for its killers and the people they killed.   It almost excuses the killings as a zero sum game.  That is why I think it misses the mark. 

I wanted to know why Mickey and Mallory should be an antihero couple, but the case was never made.  I think Stone’s miscalculation is to present this material so seriously.  Tarantino learned to have fun with this type of material.  I think most people realize on many levels Natural Born Killers is a wholly ridiculous picture of the world. 

Before I get too metaphysical, to say the movie ends in carnage and violence would be to overlook the entire film from start to finish as one big film strip of porn violence.  I don’t know what else to really say about this film. 

Editor’s Note: Please note the last person to read this review, gets to live.  After all, I need somebody to tell the tale.  I also take no responsibility for anyone that decides to copycat me and write their own movie review about Natural Born Killers.