Overall Rating
  Awesome: 36.63%
Worth A Look: 23.84%
Average: 10.47%
Pretty Bad: 12.79%
Total Crap: 16.28%
8 reviews, 124 user ratings
|
|
| Natural Born Killers |
by Cochise
"Natural Born Killers is a surrealistic experience."
|
This film is a roller-coaster ride. Experimental and strange. It is a Rorschach ink-blot.As everyone has probably seen this film by now, I will not bore you with plot detail and character analysis, except to say two things: first, that the plot is understandable and flows in a linear direction, and second that the characterization is (except for the “situation comedy” take-off ) mostly believable. (Tommy Lee Jone’s prison warden is slightly over the top – but still credible.)
When I first hired this movie on video, I watched it for five minutes, hated it, and turned it off. However, I returned to the film when it came out on DVD five years later. The DVD had a director’s commentary, and I was keen to learn what Oliver Stone had in mind when he made this film. So, I watched the film, and the director’s commentary.
However, I can’t decide if I love or hate this movie. It is the type of film that you have to really concentrate on to appreciate the message that Oliver Stone is trying to get across. Certainly, the message of the film, even though it contains a lot of graphic violence, is against violence. There were several scenes where the violence made me feel sick. The scene where the two killers burned a woman alive was disturbing. However, I feel this shows that the film was successful in demonstrating the horror of violence. I would not condemn the film because of its violence.
The style of the film was almost like a Salvador Dali painting. It was full of surreal images. This was probably to create an unsettled feeling in the audience. The sequence where the two killers are driving down the road in the beginning of the film is totally surrealistic.
I found Stone’s technique of shifting to either of the protagonists’ point of view by changing to black and white confusing at first, but once I saw what the director was doing, it did not bother me, and made me understand the film better.
The version I saw was the full director’s cut on DVD. I feel this version was superior to the R rated version released on video. The extended scenes in the DVD version helped make the plot more understandable.
One scene that I particularly enjoyed was the one which made fun of situation comedies, a “genre” that I feel deserves, most times, to be made fun of. Putting a laugh track on the father’s lines he spoke while acting like a pig, (and his lines were not funny) pointed out how situations comedies are, in my opinion, stupid and inane. I cannot say exactly how it did this, but it did.
After I had seen the film, and the commentary, I felt like I had been studying film appreciation. This film is not a film to enjoy, really. It would be better considered as a film to study in order to learn about film. Certainly, after seeing many of Oliver Stone’s films, I was able to understand what Oliver Stone was trying to do with “Natural Born Killers.” If you’ve seen “Natural Born Killers” first, then it is easier to appreciate “Any Given Sunday.” In my opinion, “Any Given Sunday” is the far better film.
The DVD version of the film is excellent. I would give it 7/10 for picture quality, 7/10 for sound quality, and 9/10 for extra features. The extras are excellent. Oliver Stone gives an excellent documentary, explaining the purpose of the film, and why he shot it as he did. A DVD worth watching.This is not a film for the squeamish, or the easily offended. However, if you see the film in light of the director’s intent, the experience of viewing it will be rewarding. I didn’t really [i]like[/i] it, but I did [i]appreciate[/i] it.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=761&reviewer=228
originally posted: 03/08/01 23:22:41
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
This film is available for download or online viewing at CinemaNow.com For more in the CinemaNow.com series, click here.
|
 |
USA
26-Aug-1994 (R)
UK
N/A
Australia
06-Oct-1994 (R)
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed
![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
