NATURAL BORN KILLERS
A film review by Carl Miller
Copyright 1995 Carl Miller
Opening scene: Mickey and Mallory Knox arrive at a remote cafe. Mallory turns on the juke box, while Mickey orders some kee lime pie. Already, we see the bizarre editing style which will pervade the movie--short clips of odd camera angles, often in black and white, as if Stone is trying to give meaning to such innocuous conversation as "You ever had key lime pie?"
One of the truckers starts dancing with Mallory. Mallory says, "Are you flirting with me?" and starts punching him. Pretty quickly, Mickey and Mallory go from fists to knives to guns, killing the occupants one by one. At one point, a waitress cries and tries to shield herself with a coffee pot. She dies, of course--if there's one thing that can be said about this movie, it's that everyone whom we expect to die dies. Having killed all but one customer (left behind, "to tell the tale"), Mickey and Mallory hop in their car and drive away.
As you can expect, you're going to see quite a few more murders just like these. Each one, though, is a new twist--a new and more disgusting way to die. Mallory beats one man and then breaks his neck while Mickey knifes another. Mallory cuts a man's throat, then shoots him in the head. Really, much more focus is given on graphic death scenes than characterization of the victims or the killers.
Now, a lot of ultra-violent movies are good. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and RESERVOIR DOGS were great. But as the viewer may begin to realize as the film progesses, there isn't much more to the film than violence.
Of course, the film tries to delve into the reasons why Mickey and Mallory enjoy killing so much. Both were abused as children--in fact, in one of the film's many laughably overblown scenes, we have Rodney Dangerfield abusing Mallory on a sitcom called "I Love Mallory". It's somewhat confusing how this sitcom fits into the story--like much of the film, there's no separation between fantasy and reality. One minute Rodney Dangerfield is talking about molesting Mallory to a laughtrack, and the next minute Mickey walks in with a crowbar to liberate Mallory. As for Mickey, we only have a few black and white clips of him as a child, saying, "Please, don't hit me." These are stuck in with clips of Mickey with blood running down his face, dragons breathing fire, and animated comic book characters. These clips have no meaning--they only serve to annoy and confuse the viewer.
Tommy Lee Jones does what he can with his role, which isn't much. Robert Downey Jr. overplays a bit, but the viewer should be used to that by the time he comes on screen.
To top it all of, the story just doesn't work. When Mickey is surrounded in a convenience store, he surrenders, only to knife a policeman in the face. But no one thinks to shoot him--instead seven or eight policeman beat him with batons, for an unrevealed length of time. (When seen a year later, he has suffered no lasting damage whatsoever.) No one ever thinks to shoot them--the warden even says "every time we're ready to put them to death, they go and kill someone, and we have to start the whole thing over again," as if policemen were not permitted to shoot mass murderers in the act of killing. And the end--which I won't reveal--just doesn't make sense.
This film is not a total disaster, probably because of Quentin Tarantino's original screenplay. But whatever he wrote is buried under Stone's sensationalism--this film bears virtually no resemblance to PULP FICTION or RESERVOIR DOGS.
Rating: -2 (-4 to +4)
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