Natural Born Killers (1994) starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore directed by Oliver Stone Movie Review

Natural Born Killers (1994)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers (1994)

Stone Cold Murder

Social misfits Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) are perfect together. Well perfectly whacko as they drive the highways going on random killing sprees; not for money just because they get their kicks by murdering people. But they never kill everyone as they need someone to remain to tell their story and soon these murderers become folk heroes due to the press coverage.

Oliver Stone has said that "Natural Born Killers" is a satire on how the media adore serial killers and their horrific actions. Quentin Tarantino who wrote the original story is reported to have hated how his story turned out in this movie. Those are two important points for the rest of this review.

So on the first point of Oliver Stone's vision for this being a satire on how media portrays the violence of real serial killers causing the public to yearn for more true crime. Well yes I can what Stone was attempting to do because there is plenty of satire in this movie including and unsettling scene of Rodney Dangerfield starring as a dad in a 50s style sitcom molesting his daughter. Unfortunately the style of the movie combined with the violence causes it to walk the fine line and frequently go on to the wrong side, stopping being a satire and becoming a glorification of violence in its own right.

But then there is Quentin Tarantino and I can see why he could end up disappointed with Stone's finished product partly because it does seem to miss the point on more than one occasion. But then there is the matter of style and it is simply too all over the place to work and the random styling ends up ruining the narrative. Watching "Natural Born Killers" now I can envision "Natural Born Killers" more along the lines of "True Romance" crossed with "From Dusk to Dawn" rather than what it ended up.

What this all boils down to is that for me "Natural Born Killers" doesn't do it for me as not only does the point of the story get lost in Oliver Stone's styling but his styling is all over the place.


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