In my recent review for The Doors, I mentioned how director Oliver Stone is not a subtle filmmaker. His work is often blatantly obvious in whatever message he is trying to impart. Sometimes that works to his advantage as with Platoon or the aforementioned The Doors. Mostly it doesn’t work for me. There’s a lot of energy and such, but it seems to be so disorienting and in-your-face, that I often find it something of a cinematic turn-off. But, as I said, when it works, it works.
In Natural Born Killers, it doesn’t work.
Homicidal lovers Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) are on the run, killing people seemingly at random but always leaving one witness alive to tell their story. Do they have a reason for doing what they do? Well, we get a sitcom-style backstory that showed Malory’s father (Rodney Dangerfield) abused her in every conceivable way possible while her mother (Edie McClurg) did nothing to really stop him. Butcher shop delivery guy Mickey fell for Mallory, so their first victims were both her parents, and then they took their show on the road. However, they are for some reason celebrities on top of everything else. The (I guess) Australian host of a TV show dedicated to violent crime, one Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr), is following them for the ratings while Detective Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore) is pursuing them for law enforcement when he isn’t hawking copies of his book or strangling prostitutes.
Yeah, this is one of those worlds where everyone is either a sleazeball or has maybe two dimensions. Even the Native American man, the only one Mickey and Mallory regret killing, seems a bit crude. But that’s only one small part of Stone’s movie. He changes the way scenes are shot. They go from black-and-white to color to monochrome to animated to just plain exaggerated. These aren’t really people so much as they are cartoon characters. It’s all a bit too much for me.
Ultimately, this is Oliver Stone acting in a completely unrestrained manner. His message is here for all to see: American culture, and perhaps humanity as a whole, glorifies violence and antisocial behavior. People around the world hero worship Mickey and Mallory because…just because. And all I could think was, “I get it. You can stop now.” This sort of empty cinematic nihilism doesn’t work for me when I am not sure Stone can take it all that seriously himself.
I did note that the original story was from Quentin Tarantino. He’s another filmmaker who isn’t always known for his subtlety, but he can be when he needs to be. Sure, there’s the bombast, but then you have moments like Jules and Vincent arguing over whether or not a foot massage counts as cheating. It’s crude, but the reason for their having the argument is a subtle one: it increases tension because they’re supposed to be carrying out a hit for their crimelord boss. A part of me wonders what this movie would have been like if Tarantino had directed it as well. I am sure there would have been a lot of violence and strong language, but I also think it might have ended in a manner I found much more satisfying with characters that more or less act like people. Stone, here, wasn’t interested in that sort of thing.
Grade: C-
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