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Directed by Oliver Stone. Story by Quentin Tarantino; screenplay by Richard Rutowski, Oliver Stone & David Veloz. Starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr, Tom Sizemore, Tommy Lee Jones, Rodney Dangerfield.
122 minutes (Director's Cut).
Oh yes. One of the greats.
To me, Natural Born Killers is the ultimate '90s American movie. It's like a compendium of obsessions: serial killers, reality tv shows, drugs, postmodernism, flashy technique, extreme violence, etc. More of all of them than ever before.
Plus, it's a great drug experience movie. As Woody Harrelson himself pointed out, you don't need to take drugs to see this movie, it does a lot of the work for you.
That's not to say that it's not better if you're stoned. It is.
I'm sure everyone already knows how the story of this movie is about Mickey and Mallory Knox, fun-loving mass murderers inspired by the media, then glamorised by it and so that they can in turn inspire their own imitators. People went nuts over this movie. Some loved it wholeheartedly. Soem hated it with such a vengeance they managed to contradict themselves; I lost count of how many reviews said that the movie hit you over the head with its message AND that the message didn't come through.
I consider it to be essential cinema. Don't take hard psychedelics before watching it, it'll be too fucking much way too fucking fast. Smoke a joint or a couple of bowls and ease into it. Get hold of the Director's Cut; it doesn't add any new scenes, but there are literally hundreds of small shots of graphic violence that powerfully add to its impact. Plus if you get it on DVD you can thrill to some pretty choice deleted scenes.
Whatever you think of the rest of the movie, editors Brian Berdan and Hank Corwin were robbed at Oscar time. Their combination of all the different film stocks is wonderful.
Also, Rodney Dangerfield was robbed of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Mallory's abusive, repulsive father.
I give it ten out of ten, naturally.
© 2002 Joey Narcotic.