Natural Born Killers ** (1994, Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Downey Jr) – Classic Movie Review 2080

Director Oliver Stone’s hugely controversial 1994 serial killer thriller and media satire started life originally as a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino. But here it is substantially reinvented and given a changed ending by writer-director Stone, leading the two men to disagree. Stone has set out to make a revolting movie, and it is. It doesn’t have a subtle bone in its body.

Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis star a bizarre young couple, Mickey and Mallory, both victims of traumatised childhoods, who become lovers and psychopathic serial murderers. They set off on a vividly gory cross-country killing spree on their honeymoon, getting their mass-slaughters kicks on Route 666, irresponsibly glorified by the mass media, who turn them into legendary folk heroes.

All visual flash and sudden death, and very little intellectual content to back it up, Stone’s movie reveals all the cards in its hands in the first half hour, then simply repeats the ideas, driving the movie stone dead into the ground. The screenplay just isn’t clever enough and it’s not a success. As a moral satire, it can only make a one-point obvious message about how much of America enjoys violent entertainment and its serial killers, especially when that adds viewers and readers for the media that cover it so graphically.

Acting-wise, the talented and usually likeable Harrelson and Lewis give extremely alienating performances, but that is exactly what’s required of them, while, in the latter stages of the film, Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Downey Jr overplay their performances as the warden and a TV interviewer.

The film’s levels of violence turned it into a cause célèbre, with right-wingers trying to ban the movie altogether and leftists left defending a film they didn’t care for. The British Broadcasting Standards Commission criticised Channel 4 over its TV screening of the movie on 5 November 1997 at 10.50pm. It upheld 11 complaints about bad language, violence and trivialisation of death in the film. ‘The violence was graphic and sustained, verging on the mindless,’ the Commission said.

The running time is an excruciating 118 minutes but the Director’s Cut is now also available at 122 minutes.

Rated R for extreme violence and graphic carnage, for shocking images, and for strong language and sexuality.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2080

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