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Natural Born Killers (1994)
Great Idea, Poor Execution
It is easy to see why, when Quentin Tarantino viewed the editor's cut of the film he asked for his credit to be changed from 'Written by...' to a 'Story by...' credit. This is because of the poorly put together nature of the film. Oliver Stone took a great script idea, (two mass-murdering lovers who become idolised by the media for their gruesome deeds. Sounds like promising material for a cutting satire? maybe some Tarantino dark humour?) and made an overly pretentious, shallow movie. Many people mention the 'beautiful' use four different film stocks, however it does little more than act as a shallow diversion and does little to enhance the movie, Oliver Stone fails to pull it of with half the artistic talent that Tony Scott achieved in 'Man on Fire'. The use of back projection allows for some entertaining, and in some case actually relevant, visual metaphors. There is some truly excellent scenes but having read the original Tarantino screenplay I have to say Oliver's changes did little to improve it. Showing none of the intelligence the original script had and removing many of the scenes which actually relate to the media based themes, and throwing the original carefully scripted use of various film stocks to the wind to create a disjointed visual style which while helping show how Mickey and Mallory view the world, may not help the reader with his/her enjoyment of the film. May I suggest you don't spend your money on this film, but try your best to see it for its style and ultimately relevant, if diluted message.
As an experiment in filmaking give it 10/10, as a piece of entertainment it barely makes 5/10. But if you enjoy controversial or violent films, there are worse ways to spend two hours.