Natural Born Killers
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Movie Reviews of Natural Born Killers
Movie Review: Awe-inspiring.
Summary: 4 Stars
Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994)
I never really expected all that much from Natural Born Killers. All the reviews I've read have spent thousands of words going on and on about what a scathing indictment of American media culture this movie is as if it's the only thing about the movie that matters. That'll teach me to listen to reviewers. What's great about Natural Born Killers is that, within the space of Stone's ham-handed assault on the media, there are two characters who have a real relationship. We see how that relationship unfolds, in all its ugly glory. And that's what will keep you riveted.
This doesn't feel like an Oliver Stone movie, really. He deals with the basic nastiness of his premise in a dadaesque fashion more reminiscent of David Lynch or Peter Jackson than Oliver Stone; the uglier the scene he's depicting, the more over-the-top he gets. The cast is more than ready to ham it up with him. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis make perfect thrill-killers, but it's some of the minor characters who really shine here. Who knew Rodney Dangerfield could project such an air of depraved menace? Tommy Lee Jones and Tom Sizemore, whose characters could have easily been cardboard cutouts representing the corruption of the law enforcement, are three-dimensional (though Jones' character never misses a chance to play to stereotype). Everyone seems as if they're having a great time. Kind of odd given that mass murder is the subject of the movie, but there you go.
Capping that is the direction, which is exceptional throughout. The film comes across as thoroughly frenetic, partially because Stone manhandled five hundred more cuts into this movie than there are in Dawn of the Dead (which held the previous record), and Natural Born Killers is almost half an hour shorter. The movie plays like an adrenaline rush-- which is, of course, exactly what Stone intended. It pounds away at the viewer, merciless and relentless; it may be the only film extant capable of leaving an audience physically exhausted after doing nothing more than sitting in a comfortable chair for two hours.
Somehow, after all these words, I've only touched the tip of the iceberg about Natural Born Killers. Since I'm running out of room, I'll just have to say "trust me-- this was one of the best American films of the 1990s." **** ?
Movie Review: WHAT A PIECE OF JUNK
Summary: 1 Stars
I saw this movie when it first came out,half way thru the movie people were walking out.I stayed ,figured it would get better...it didn't! After the movie,guy looked at me & said... Hey bud,is this the worst movie ever made ...or is it me!! I told him,no...it's not you! There was no rhyme or reason to the flick...it just kept getting more rediculous!Save your time & money!
Jim
Movie Review: a giant misfire
Summary: 1 Stars
This movie stunk.
While I understand the mocking of the public's fixation on tabloids, the movie nontheless was vulgar and did not achieve it's goal. Satirization is difficult and it is not Oliver Stone's foray.
While this may sound crazy, John Waters did the same thing with "Serial Mom" and that movie was effective on it's premise.
This end product was just a mean spirited movie. The "satire" was not prominent enough while the violence and crudity was featured way too much. As an arty movie, it would have been acceptable. As a major, mainstream release, it was a failure.
Movie Review: Violent but also pretty good
Summary: 4 Stars
Director Oliver Stone's stark satire of media and murder still generates controversy.Natural Born Killers looks at how America and the media become fascinated by the tabloids and serial killers. Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play a couple that goes on a three week killing spree. Every time they go on a rampage, they leave one person to tell the story of how things went down so that they could tell the media, and the media could immortalize them. Robert Downey Jr. plays an over the top reporter (perhaps because they are making fun of reporters) who only cares about covering the story. Tom Sizemore plays a crazy cop who's devoted himself to capturing the couple and Tommy Lee Jones plays the warden of a prison warden who wants to get some TV exposure not matter what. The acting was very good by Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson. However, Downey, Jones, and Sizemore's characters all seem to be way over the top, almost comical. This is probably due to the fact that Stone is satirizing the media and the police. I think they could have tone it down just a bit and still kept the over the top characters. The directing was great. The movie seamlessly moves from shots in film to shots with a camera to old video and back and forth. I don't know if anybody noticed this but it seemed that most of the shots of the actors, especially shots of Harrelson and Lewis, seemed to be slanted. I thought that was pretty cool. The visuals were perhaps my favorite part of the movie. The lighting was great. They changed colors of the lighting for different moods and atmospheres. The cuts of TV, old video, and all the madness was just haunting. The visuals for this movie will leave you stunned. This movie is definitely not for the squeamish.Quentin Tarantino scriptMovie Review: Why not kill them at birth, or even before?
Summary: 4 Stars
This is Apocalypto in the all-American modern version. Our society produces, be they born or not born, a whole fringe of killers that absolutely know what is wrong or right, good or bad, but who do not care a fig about it, even if at times they do not find any pleasure in murdering. The film explores the destiny of a couple of two young people who meet by accident but find in themselves so many common alienations and frustrations based on about the same social, cultural and personal environment : sexual abuse and violence from parents, rejection from society, total lack of care and help in education that is inexistant or social counselling that is just impotent. They end up taking what they want by force since it is not provided to them free. But the film goes a lot further. It analyzes the role of the media that systematically sell paper and prime time advertising with this showing of violence and with fake or unfake interviews of murderers and other criminals. The lower, the better. The nastier, the more profitable. The bloodier, the tastier. Then the film also shows that the prison system is a system of incarceration and containment, in no way of reform, education and improvement. These prisoners are there to survive because no one dares execute them all. They are the sacrificial victims of society that needs them to regenerate its lost virginity, purity and morality. They are the sacrificial victims of a god that has nothing to envy the Maya gods. This god is the god of selfish greedy consumerism. Till it explodes. And the official end of the film shows that such criminals can disappear in society forever, and they are then living among us unknown and unseen. The alternative ending shows that you need the intervention of an angel to execute these criminals. The film preaches and advocates that these criminals are natural born killers, hence that they will never be anything else, hence that they have to be purely and simply executed as soon as they are noticed and as fast as possible to avoid as many victims as possible, why not at birth ? This vision of crime in our society is criminal in itself because it produces the criminals concerned by considering there is no other way, it is their fate and ours.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne