 Unrated Director's Cut Tagline: A bold new film that takes a look at a country seduced by fame, obsessed by crime and consumed by the media. Oliver Stone delivers a powerful movie unlike any other: Natural Born Killers, a visually dazzling, wickedly funny slam of violence and media obsession that's "the most radical film any major studio has released since A Clockwork Orange" (Stephen Schiff, The New Yorker). As fugitive serial killers Mickey and Mallory, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play crazymixedup kids a demon has nightmares about. And Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore and Rodney Dangerfield make vivid impressions in this wild ride that packs a wallop. Storyline: The misadventures of Mickey and Mallory: outcasts, lovers, and serial killers. They travel across Route 666 conducting psychadelic mass-slaughters not for money, not for revenge, just for kicks. Glorified by the media, the pair become legendary folk heroes; their story told by the single person they leave alive at the scene of each of their slaughters. Written by Murray Chapman Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, October 31, 2009 -- Anyone with cable or satellite television can attest to the fact that everything from the mundane to the more patently unusual (think of last month's "Balloon Boy" incident) is announced with breathless alacrity. Such sensationalistic "news" shows as Nancy Grace routinely have an "Urgent Breaking News" banner at the bottom, something I guess which could be seen as the broadcast equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. What is Ms. Grace going to scroll across the bottom of her screen when something really bad happens? You know, like a mass murderering couple on a rampage, a la Oliver Stone's notorious 1994 film Natural Born Killers. Those of us who regularly experience (endure?) coverage of horrific crimes on satellite or cable can no doubt relate to Stone's perhaps obvious thesis that the media feed on such events. One only needed to have the television on recently, for example, to see virtually every "news" outlet marking (I hesitate to say celebrating, though that in fact is what it seemed at times) the 40th anniversary of the horrific Manson family murders. And yet because of Stone's nonstop hyperbole in the film, which he couches (rightly or wrongly) as satire, it's often hard to separate the horrors being parodied from the film's own technique. Can a film which is ostensibly parodying the glorification of violence be taken seriously (at least with regard to its thesis) when it spends two hours doing a pretty damned good job of glorifying violence itself? That's the question at the core of whether or not you will see Natural Born Killers as a masterpiece, a travesty, or something in between. Natural Born Killers, based on an original story conception by (who else?) Quentin Tarantino, follows the murderous rampage of serial killer lovers Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis), white trash youngsters who are both running from their own abusive pasts (in one of several pop-psychology moments which are appropriately skewered in the film, including a hilarious cameo by "psychiatrist" Steven Wright). The two are a match made in hell, and soon become media darlings as they kill pretty much everyone who is unlucky enough to come into contact with them. Robert Downey, Jr. is on hand as the main television host promoting the pair, sporting an excellent Australian accent which is obviously modeled on 1990's trash television staple Steve Dunleavy (who appears in one of the extras, and who has not, shall we say, aged particularly well). The two other main stars are Tommy Lee Jones as the prison warden at the jail where Mickey and Mallory ultimately wind up, and Tom Sizemore as a cop cum bounty hunter who's out to catch the duo. All of the performances in Natural Born Killers are spot on, that can't be denied. Harrelson, who at this point in his career was known mostly for playing the dimwitted bartender on Cheers, is a marvel of menace and rage as Mickey, and Lewis matches him every step of the way, with a performance tinged with a scary coquettishness that makes Mallory completely unforgettable. Jones' redneck riffing is both funny and frightening (as is his patently hilarious hairstyle), and Sizemore traverses a very fine line between sadism and putative heroism in this role. And yet ultimately this film is all about Stone and his directorial choices. If you haven't seen Natural Born Killers, you are in for a glut of sensory stimulation such as you may never have experienced before. Stone quick cuts through the film in a variety of formats, from 8mm to videotape to animated interstitials, all the while crafting his narrative as a media onslaught in and of itself. "Psychological backdrops" are utilized throughout the movie, often consisting of film clips and stills that hope to add a subtext to what is happening up front. Frequently subtitles are projected on the characters themselves to augment their state of mind. It all adds up to a hyperkinetic experience that will exhaust even the most ardent fans of the film. The first hour or so of Natural Born Killers is, despite its seamy elements and its gruesome violence, a tour de force for everyone involved. Stone finds just the right tone between horror and hilarity as Mickey and Mallory shoot their way through the populace. Downey's host Wayne Gale is the smarmy cheerleader, quickly realizing what a ratings bonanza the pair is (and, yes, that is Mark Harmon "playing" Mickey in a recreation of the crime spree for Gale's show). And yet the first climax of the piece, when the Knoxes are caught, is when the film really starts to fray around its dramatic edges. Stone then invites us into a sort of post-apocalyptic experience where their jail time quickly devolves into a riot and yet another nonstop killing spree, this time all covered by live television, courtesy of Gale's top rated show, American Maniacs. The last hour of Natural Born Killers is a study in entropy, albeit one so incessantly busy and especially noisy that it just outright numbs the viewer. One of Stone's major theses in this piece is obviously about the desensitizing nature of television, something he explores much more viscerally early in the film in the quasi-sitcom segment Everyone Loves Mallory, which plays out like a sort of nightmarish version of Married With Children. But here, later in the film, it's simply too much and goes on too long to ultimately have its desired effect. In an extra culled from the previous laserdisc release of this Director's Cut, both Stone and Harrelson pooh-pooh any influence the film itself may have on impressionable youth. This was obviously made pre-Columbine, as the two shooters in that tragedy were evidently obsessed by Natural Born Killers. And that ultimately is the problem with satire played literally for blood and guts the way it is here—those with enough objectivity and, yes, even wisdom to understand Stone's underlying acerbity will "get it." Those who simply revel in the film's outright violence will, like the desensitized characters in the film itself, simply be puppets hypnotized by the onslaught of that same blood and guts. Satire like this relies on a certain intelligence which the audience must bring to the project. Unfortunately the sad fact is that, perfectly in line with Stone's reasoning vis a vis the modern media and its effect on people, the public at large has been "dumbed down" by television and other media to the point where I'm not sure they'll be adequately prepared to separate satire from reality, and that is the real tragedy which both proves Natural Born Killers' point and also makes it one of the most frightening boogie men of this Halloween season. When a film seems to glory in the very subject it's simultaneously attempting to excoriate, it's bound to be controversial. Natural Born Killers' reputation may have been forever changed by the tragedy at Columbine, but even before that horror, a lot of viewers and critics were troubled by the film's penchant for highlighting the very violence it took the media to task for sensationalizing. All of that said, the film is a wonder of styles and contains both Stone's typical trenchant attitude about modern life, as well as some visceral performances by its lead quintet. It's a film that sparks discussion, a film that is patently provocative and over the top. It probably should not be viewed by anyone impressionable and emotionally troubled. Whether or not you fall into that particular category, you'll also need to decide if you need to be exposed to something this graphic in order to decry violence and the media's promotion of it. [CSW] For those of us that lived through the 1990s and were very much aware of the movement towards sensationalism over facts that grew bigger and bigger through the 2000s and is just beginning to subside some in the 2010s, this love story satire was pretty much dead-on (pun intended) in pointing out the public's love for the pure sensationalism. IMDb Rating (11/04/14): 7.3/10 from 146,114 users IMDb Rating (05/19/11): 7.1/10 from 79,085 users
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