Natural Born Killers
Despite his proud insistence as a borderline lunatic left winger, Oliver Stone has always had a propensity as a writer and director to offer both insight and understanding to both sides of the fence as well as harsh critical analysis of those whom many would think he supports. This film, not so much released but rather unleashed upon audiences in 1994, could be in many ways his greatest achievement, and maybe even the greatest of the decade (at least Entertainment Weekly thought so), a pulse pounding, hallucinogenic ride for all time that attacks first and foremost the liberal media establishment but also lays complete waste to society in general and the corruption in all aspects of the human soul. The film stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in what most likely remains their two career best performances as Mickey and Mallory Knox, a serial killer couple rampaging across the country murdering everyone in their path, but as their trademark always leaving a survivor to “tell the tale”. In doing so, they wind up becoming a national (and worldwide) media sensation, being portrayed as literal rock stars with a screaming fanbase of mostly young people who consider them the epitome of “cool”. Stone’s propensity to take his visual and editing inspirations from heavy doses of acid, mushrooms, and mescaline are astounding, especially considering how well the whole thing turned out, along with the acting of the two leads. Lewis of course made the dippy white trash persona into her go to acting trademark, but it is Harrelson who is the revelation here, embodying an even tempered, purely evil, charismatic mass murderer whose personal philosophy about his ways is as eloquent as it is hypocritical, and if anyone knows anything about Harrelson’s own real life family situation (his father was an imprisoned contract killer who claimed to have been the grassy knoll gunman that killed JFK), one must wonder if he summoned the evil itself from his own DNA. Remarkably, Stone has the audacity to (successfully) portray these two twisted souls as almost the purehearted romantic heroes of the piece, at least compared to the world they’re up against, an undeniably brilliant piece of irony in its own right. It also means that we get an amazing batch of supporting performances all trying to outdo the two main stars (and each other) consisting of Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore, and Rodney Dangerfield. Downey with his ultra hyper, super sleazebag reporter Wayne Gale (the one who leads the media charge in support of the murderers) is in many ways the most likable character, the most popular with fans, and the one most overlooked for an Oscar Nomination as well, despite his obvious draconian bleeding heart liberal attitude that compels him to treat Mickey like the star he’s literally turned him into (with unfortunate results) and obnoxious Aussie accent that he chatters away with from beginning to end. Then there is Jones (only prevalent in the second half) as the insanely nightmarish redneck warden of the prison where Mickey and Mallory are sent to, giving new meaning to the phrase “chewing up the scenery” while going completely over the top and raising the entertainment level of the piece substantially. Next up there is Sizemore (in the role he’s probably most associated with) as the scumbag, self proclaimed “supercop” (i.e. he wrote a book about himself) on the trail of the pair whom, once he captures them, devises an elaborate plan to have them killed during a prison transfer all while having a sick, sexual obsession with Mallory herself and in the end proving to be little more than an insecure, big talker despite his reputation. Finally, there is Dangerfield, at a disadvantage due to having far less screen time than the others, but making the most formidable impression of his film acting career as Mallory’s brazenly evil father who forces his daughter into incest in what is portrayed by Stone to be a sick, sitcom environment. That aspect, among others, is what contributes to the incredible nature of the film, as Stone experiments and concocts acts of genius like no one else can (never using a straight up horizontal camera angle the entire film for example), with the shooting stages so harrowing that several crew members (including the DP) suffered mental anguish throughout. But what endures is a biting indictment of the world we lived in then and continue to live in now tenfold, going on twenty years later where it’s plainly obvious that what Stone tried to warn us about underneath the surface of a visually stunning movie was summarily ignored and society has indeed literally decayed to the point he had prophesized about in this, perhaps the most extreme motion picture ever released by a major studio…
10/10