Natural Born Killers

Thought-provoking, violent, sarcastic and incredibly intense, Natural Born Killers is a disturbingly accurate and explicit satire on the media and modern society. Oliver Stone pulls out all the directorial stops to ridicule and taunt the media and to provoke and question the audience.

In telling the story of Mickey and Mallory Knox - two lovers who live their lives killing for kicks and, in doing so, become national heroes and media celebrities - Stone reveals the dark side of a society not too far removed from our own. While it can be enjoyed at a surface level, NBK is a very intelligent film which requires the viewer's fullest attention if all the subtexts, some blatent, some cryptic, are to be understood.

Right from the start, the viewer's preconceptions and opinions are under siege. The film starts with a graphic portrayal of a typical day for Mickey and Mallory. The murders are undoubtedly brutal and yet the viewer is not given a chance to dwell on them as one murder follows another. The waitress was an innocent bystander but instead of feeling shocked at her murder, the viewer laughs at the manner in which it is portrayed. This use of dark humour to distract from the otherwise distressing violence is made throughout the film and largely relies on visual effects to achieve this.

The satire of the media is achieved through its portrayal on the film itself and the use of visuals - from the MTV style cuts to the "witness" to Wayne Gale's demise. That "I Love Mallory" could be mistaken for a genuine American TV series is unsettling in itself.

Mickey and Mallory are not portrayed as evil characters; instead their actions are merely recorded. Stone does not moralise - instead he leaves the viewer to judge for themselves. There are no characters the viewer can empathise with and the only "good" character is the Native American - and it's significant that he has no contact with TV, radio or the outside world in general.

Although Tarantino provided the original script, Stone seized the chance to make significant alterations. In the directing and editing too, he turned NBK from what might have been just another Tarantino "guns and talk" movie into one of the most intelligent and challenging reflections on society of all time.

Think as you watch - if you can stand the pace.

Programme note by Scott Keir

Oliver Stone has made his name by directing some of the most politically controversial films of the last fifteen years. Natural Born Killers is no exception, riding on a wave of media hype with the BBFC delaying its release and reports of copycat killings preceding it into the UK.

Stone's best films tend to be his most personal (notably "Platoon"), other films are technically brilliant but tend to lack coherence of character and plot (see "JFK"). NBK draws upon the visual imagery of Stone's previous work: the dreamlike quality of "the Doors", the brutality of "Platoon" and "Salvador" and the harsh, detached observation of "JFK". But it also inherits these films weaknesses and loses the plot within the frantically paced cuts.

Stone's decision to use the mix and match visual style of different film stocks and even animation gives a very striking, "in-yer-face" quality which looks fantastic. However it does not suit the otherwise documentary style of the film and leads to a sense of apathy between viewer and subjects.

This style of the portrayal of violence and its consequences was so much better visualised by Steven Spielberg in "Schindler's List". Stone tries to make up for this with his seemingly drug-induced visuals but they stick out too much and should have been used to complement the film and not overwhelm it.

The original script from Tarantino has been substantially changed with Stone trying to add a moral aspect to Tarantino's original dark humour and snappy dialogue. This is not an entirely bad thing, but whilst Stone succeeds in creating a film which can be enjoyed on the surface level, the viewer will be hard pressed to find any substance underneath.

There is no sense of balance to the film, with all characters appearing equally evil. This is not necessarily wrong but needs to be handled better the crude characterisations offered by Messrs. T and S.

As a purely Friday night, leave your brain at the box-office, alcohol enhanced film, NBK works very well however when analysed closely it falls apart. It should be seen for the sheer exuberence of the visuals (and the still life scenes over the credits) but if you want a serious "morality of the media" debate watch "Drop the Dead Donkey" instead.

Natural Born Killers cements Stone's claim to being the most technically brilliant director today but after this hallucinogenic trip of a lifetime the viewer is left with the ultimate downer - was it really worth the hype?

Programme note by Neil Chue Hong

If you saw Pulp Fiction earlier in the season and wished you hadn't because of the violence, then just don't even think about seeing this film. It's possibly one of the most violent movies of recent years; the body count almost putting Hong Kong action director John Woo in the shade. Lucky then, some might say, that several of the more disturbing scenes including Mickey's rape and murder of a woman, mass throat-slittings, and prison guards being shoved into ovens, were censored from the final version. Based on a story by Tarantino (annoyed by the way his script was altered he disassociated himself completely from the making of the film), NBK follows Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) on their journey of mindless slaughter. Standard road movie stuff. Mickey eventually gets arrested and attempts to break free. Standard prison movie stuff. Fortunately, the way NBK is filmed and edited is far from standard. Black and white, Super-8, home video, animation and back projection are all used. Mallory's abused childhood is shown in the style of a sitcom. The overall effect is that of an MTV-like montage of images and effects.

With many films, the question of violence, sensationalism, and hype, is brought up and discussed but ultimately shrugged off - sometimes rightly - as hackneyed. The difference here is that this film's entire message is concerned with the cynical media sensationalism that preys on our latent desire for the gory and the salacious. We live in a time when headline news can consist of a football hero who is accused of murdering his wife, or of a woman who cuts off her violent husband's penis. NBK is itself part of this media bandwagon, and thereby indicts itself. Whether you think this is NBK's strength or weakness is a matter of opinion. I happen to think that it takes the film onto a far more interesting level, although whether this is in itself enough to make NBK work is another thing entirely.

Review by Matthew Bull
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96