Natural Born Killers is basically to Quentin Tarantino what the Kubrick movie version of The Shining is to Stephen King. In other words, the red-headed stepchild of the bunch. King reportedly abhorred Kubrick's take on his novel, and it still leaves him cold to this day. To be fair, the two really are apples and oranges. Kubrick basically took the novel's general premise and tossed most of the rest out the window. It happens.
And yet, even though I prefer the book version, I do love The Shining, and it's worth pointing out that the TV miniseries version, which is considerably more faithful to the book, is also about half as effective as the Kubrick version. I like director Mick Garris and he's done some fun horror movies, but Kubrick, he is not.
Likewise, director Oliver Stone is no Quentin Tarantino. The two are from different generations: Stone was born in the mid-40's, while Tarantino was born in the early 60's, and quite frankly, Stone was someone who was not only at the top of his game when he made Natural Born Killers, but he had a more mature perspective on things that QT couldn't possibly have had at the time, by simple virtue of having not only been in the business longer, but for having lived a very different life from QT.
Stone, lest we forget, was a Vietnam vet, and that alone can give one a very different approach to the portrayal of violence in his films. For the most part, violence means something specific to him, having experienced it first hand, while to Tarantino, it's much more abstract and one step removed. QT's experience with violence is through the films he grew up with, not from being in the thick of it himself.
For that reason, his films will always have a certain bigger-than-life quality that verges on cartoonish, and I don't necessarily mean that as a dig. We all have different experiences as human beings, and just because one hasn't gone through something personally, doesn't mean that they can't write about it effectively, obviously.
With the script for NBK, Stone was faced with something more fantastical than he usually took on, so it makes perfect sense that he would feel the need to take it apart and put it back together again his own way, and filter it through his own particular sensibilities. The film is not one QT himself would have made in a million years, and he was reportedly not happy about that at all, at one point demanding his name be outright removed from the credits, but that doesn't mean it lacks what made Tarantino so beloved in the first place.
As Stone has gone on record as saying, his take on QT's script was meant to be an examination of violence in the media, and the unhealthy obsession we have with serial killers and violent movies, and the way we elevate certain people, fictional or otherwise, into antiheroes. To the younger people reading this, this is hardly news, but back then, in the mid-90's, tabloid TV and reality TV were still in their relative infancy, and this film hit just as it was blowing up in earnest for the first time.
At the time Stone made the film, as you can see in the montage at the end, America had just experienced the divisive OJ and Menendez Brothers trials, the even more divisive Rodney King trial (which is referenced in the scene in which Mickey and Mallory are set upon by the cops outside the drug store- something which might well go over younger viewers' heads these days), which literally sparked nationwide riots (including one near where I lived), as well as the splashier, trashier antics of the likes of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal and the Lorena Bobbit attack.
Even as practically a kid at the time, one was expected to have an opinion on these things, and as an adult, it was positively a requirement. These were the stuff of many a water cooler discussion and more than a few angry disagreements. Of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and I don't think anyone would deny that things have gotten even worse these days, with America (and the world in general) as divided as ever.
But back then, before the internet was really a thing, this sort of film commenting on the state of the world was a genuinely novel endeavor. Few had attempted to use art to comment on reality the way Stone does in this film, at least in this particular way.
So, while it may seem relatively tame in comparison to the then-future likes of, say, Saw, Hostel (which Tarantino himself executive produced, along with the sequel), Martyrs, A Serbian Film, the August Underground series and the overall work of Rob Zombie, back then, some people were genuinely outraged by this film.
Indeed, many placed the blame for a number of copycat crimes directly at Stone's feet, including the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado (the shooters even code-named their attack NBK) and Heath High School, and the shootings of William Savage and Patsy Byers, the latter of which actually sued Stone, with the help of author John Grisham, who called Stone out publicly for the film and said that artists should be held accountable for their work inspiring violence. (You can read more about the various crimes "inspired" by NBK here.)
Thankfully, Byers lost that case or we might be living in a very different type of society now, one where artists are no longer free to make the types of challenging films they want to make anymore. Certainly, Tarantino himself would have been hard-pressed to make something like Kill Bill, much less assist with the likes of Hostel. It's almost hard to believe nowadays that people could be so upset by a movie that doesn't even take itself that seriously, and yet, such were the times.
Keep in mind, this was near the beginning of the whole "political correctness" movement, and a time of great social upheaval and widespread outrage- something which would only get far worse with the advent of the internet. Certainly, my younger readers can relate to that, but back then, it was all relatively fresh and new and it really did feel like things could go sideways at any moment, even if they never quite did, the widespread riots in the aftermath of the King verdict notwithstanding.
Obviously, we're at a sort of similar crossroads right now, which is why I think a film like NBK is as relevant as ever. Stone inherently got where society was headed, and felt compelled to comment on it before things got completely out of hand, and for that reason, it's just as compelling as it was back in the day, when the film was first released. I also think that, in spite of QT's dismissal of the film, had Stone done what fellow director Tony Scott did with QT's True Romance, which is to say, be incredibly faithful to the source material, the film would have been little more than a footnote in history.
Don't get me wrong, I love True Romance, and QT's original script for NBK, which I've also read, would have made for a fun little flick that wasn't too far removed from that film- a sort of companion piece, as it were. Which makes sense, as it began its life, as I mentioned in my review for Romance, as part of a mammoth 500-page script that QT wrote which encompassed both films. But would it be as remembered as it is if Stone had stuck to QT's script? I don't think so.
After producers Jane Hamsher and Don Murphy bought the rights to QT's original script, they brought it to Stone, who was looking to do a fun little summer-type movie, in the vein of an Arnold Schwarzenegger flick. He thought the script would be perfect for what he had in mind, but Stone being Stone, he couldn't help but want to inject more of himself into the proceedings, while still allowing for a healthy dose of QT's witty dialogue- and feet fetish.
So, he, actor-writer Richard Rutowski (who worked with Jodorowsky on another crazy cult classic, The Holy Mountain and went on to produce another crazy road movie, Freeway) and David Veloz (who went on to write and direct the excellent Permanent Midnight) put their heads together and took QT's basic storyline and completely overhauled it from scratch. Keeping the basic characters and little else, save a bit of QT's patented dialogue here and there, the three instead opted to go overtly socio-political with the material, something that QT doesn't do a lot of in his own work.
The end result was a heady mix of balls-to-the-wall action and commentary on the state of society at the time. To say it was not for everyone is putting it mildly. As noted, QT himself hated the film, and was only talked into leaving his name on it after Stone sat him down and explained what he was going for. He eventually came to terms with it and allowed his name to remain, but, as with King and Kubrick's film, it's not a source of pride to him, that's for sure.
In fact, he's essentially disowned the film and doesn't consider it part of his overall canon- it was not, for instance, included in the various box sets of his work, though the Tarantino XX collection tellingly did feature True Romance, even though he didn't direct it himself. That said, he did warm to the film somewhat over time, especially when one of his personal heroes, Johnny Cash, told him he just loved the film and watched it over and over with wife June!
But, be that as it may, I have chosen to include it in my retrospective because, if you've read the original script- if not, you can read it here- there's still just enough of it incorporated into the proceedings to recommend it to QT fans. It may not be an "official" Tarantino film, but it's hard to imagine it existing in the first place if QT's script hadn't inspired Stone so much to do what he did with it. Like many a book adaptation before and since, Stone simply did his own thing with it. You can hate on it, but the original script will always be around for those interested in QT's original vision.
On my end, it's also easily one of my favorite movies, not just of the films QT was involved with, but in general. I re-watch it pretty regularly and I may well have seen it more times than any other film in the QT-verse, and that includes in the theatre, where I saw it at least 5 times, more than any other QT-affiliated work, in fact. (And no, it wasn't cause for concern to my mom, who was used to my being into such things from an early age, as I detailed in prior reviews in this series.)
I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call it my favorite- it's more of an Oliver Stone film than a Tarantino one- but it's still easily one of the most essential films of the 90's. If you're looking to explain what a crazy time that was to people too young to remember it, or who weren't born yet, you could do a lot worse- but you'd be hard-pressed to do a lot better, either.
One of the things I love most about it was its relentlessly experimental nature. While Stone had experimented with using different film stocks and the like on his previous films JFK and Heaven & Earth, he really took the approach to new extremes here, including rear projections that were shot live and had to be perfectly in sync with the action in the foreground. Indeed, Stone would never be this radical in his approach ever again. Understandably, given, by all accounts, this was not the easiest of shoots.
There were many injuries all around (the cameraman broke his finger, another cut his eye, and star Juliette Lewis broke actor Tom Sizemore's nose in the scene in which the two tangle in her prison cell), the shoot in the prison- which was shot in an actual working prison, using actual prisoners (the white one that gives the black guy the eye in the mess hall, causing him to attack, had actually killed his wife and family with a lead pipe!)- was completely off-the-rails and nearly resulted in an actual riot.
Also, by most accounts, including the DVD/Blu-Ray commentary by Stone himself, many of the participants were completely loaded a lot of the time, including a pre-Iron Man Robert Downey, Jr., who got a lot worse before he got better (some of you might recall the notorious incident in which, while on heavy drugs, he accidentally went into a neighbor's house and went to sleep in their bed, mistaking it for his own!), and Tom Sizemore, who fell off the wagon after being sober for an extended amount of time before shooting began.
Stone also details a wild night in which several members of the cast and crew dropped peyote, several instances of people taking mushrooms and getting drunk on set to "get into character" (which Stone encouraged), and there was even a "Dr. Feelgood" on the set at all times to dispense various pills! Juliette Lewis said she has never worked on a set where there were more drugs involved. You can read more about all this here (scroll down to page 30), or just listen to the unrated director's commentary, which is a fascinating listen, anyway, as Stone spells out exactly what he was going for in pretty much every way.
While the shoot only took about 65 days- pretty impressive, if you consider all that I just detailed about the behind-the-scenes goings-on - the post-production editing took nearly a year. While quick-cut MTV-style editing was nothing new at the time, having been prominent in Hollywood since the 80's, the approach here is a completely different animal.
A remarkable 18 different film formats were used by cinematographer Robert Richardson, who called the shoot a "total nightmare," which nearly ended his marriage at the time. Despite all that, he still considers the film to feature some of his finest work, which, somewhat ironically, also includes several movies for Tarantino himself, like the Kill Bill movies, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight and QT's latest, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I guess QT liked the cinematography he saw here, at least.
I just love the way the film darts in and out of different formats, everything from a VHS camcorder to security camera-style footage, all of which is interspersed with quick cuts of nightmarish imagery, "found footage" of old movies (including Midnight Express and Scarface, two films that Stone wrote the screenplays for) and old-school film library shots (the bits with the 50's families pointing in horror or excitement at their TVs, for instance) and even bizarre, Liquid Television-style animation. Note also that there's nary a straight angle shot to be found in the film- like the subject matter itself, it's all a bit askew.
Of course, the cast is nothing short of phenomenal. We'd be here all day if we detailed every memorable performance, but obviously, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis are nothing short of amazing, giving the roles their all every step of the way. They really go for it, and I'd be hard-pressed to name a better performance from either of them, even though I love a lot of their stuff.
It's worth noting that Harrelson was coming off of the TV sitcom Cheers at the time, so his persona was that of a slightly dim-witted, easy-going fellow. This film certainly changed all of that practically overnight and Harrelson found himself being offered roles he never would have, had he not done the film. Interestingly, despite that persona, Harrelson's father was actually a contract killer for the mafia (!), so he didn't have to look far for inspiration for his murderous role.
That sitcom background also gave a certain zing to the unnerving bit where the film flashes back to Mallory's ugly childhood, when she first met Mickey. Staged like an old-school sitcom, complete with "awws" and a laugh track from the audience, in key, oftentimes dubious, places.
For instance, when her father gropes her, or when molestation of his kids is heavily implied. Stand-up comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who ad-libbed most of his dialogue, didn't really get what was going on in the movie, but that doesn't make his out-of-character performance here any less chilling.
I also love Robert Downey Jr's manic, egotistical Geraldo Rivera-style tabloid journalist, Wayne Gale, which was essentially rethought from the Clarence Worley character in QT's original script. In that version, Clarence, in addition to working in a comic book store, was a writer who wrote and sold a script based on Mickey and Mallory's exploits to Hollywood, which the Knoxes weren't too happy with. In QT's script, they go after him as a direct result.
Some remnants of this can still be found in the psychiatrist played by comedian Steven Wright (another QT vet from Reservoir Dogs, albeit only as the voice of radio station K-Billy). In an interview with Gale, he mentions that Mallory Knox, after hearing what Wright's psychiatrist said about her, wanted to kill him. He also completely boffs his diagnosis of her in saying that he doubted she was sexually abused and that that was some of the cause for her later behavior.
Anyway, Downey is in fine form here, adopting a ludicrous Australian accent for the role, and going gleefully over-the-top in the interview segment with Mickey at the jail, which was inspired mostly by a similar interview with Charles Manson, as well as one with Manuel Noriega. His delivery of the line "This is Elton John confessing his bisexuality to Rolling Stone!" is near worth the price of admission in and of itself, to say nothing of his losing it completely towards the end during the prison riots. (That line about coming over to his girlfriend's place to shove a "hot pepper up your ass" is also hilarious.)
I also find Tom Sizemore's portrayal of Jack Scagnetti, the detective-turned-bounty-hunter and author that is in hot pursuit of the Knoxes to be somehow more disturbing than what the Knoxes get up to themselves. That scene with him and the prostitute is much more unnerving than pretty much anything else in the film, save maybe the aforementioned "sitcom" scene. It's also an interesting bit of background that his mother was killed by Charles Whitman in front of him.
There's also a completely over-the-top turn by Tommy Lee Jones as the prison warden, Dwight McClusky, who clearly despises the prisoners all around him and thinks of them more as animals than people, which I sadly suspect is still a common thing today.
Just look at the horrific goings-on at the border with all those women and children, and it's easy to see a McClusky type overseeing that whole situation and thinking of them the exact same way. Thankfully, McClusky gets what's coming to him in the end, in more spectacularly graphic fashion in the unrated director's cut. It remains to be seen whether those involved in the whole "kids in cages" thing will get theirs, but one can only hope.
Also keep a close eye out for the following in bit parts: Edie McClurg (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) as Mallory's mom; Evan Handler (Sex and the City) as Gale's beleaguered editor; Balthazar Getty (Lost Highway) as the ill-fated gas station attendant that gives Mal the "worst head" she's ever had in her life; Kirk Baltz (Reservoir Dogs' torture victim) as one of Gale's cameramen; Pruitt Taylor Vince (Identity, Angel Heart) as the prison deputy warden; Mark Harmon (who once played Ted Bundy in a TV movie) as Mickey in the TV "re-creation"; Jared Harris (Mad Men) as the London reporter in the court montage; and Maria Pitillo (True Romance, Godzilla) and Adrien Brody (The Pianist, King Kong) as members of Gale's team.
There's also some great deleted scenes, including one that really should have been included with Ashley Judd as one of the survivors of a Mickey and Mallory attack that lived to "tell the tale" and testifies against him in court that is directly from QT's script, a great rapid-fire bit with comedian Denis Leary and a bizarre bit with bodybuilders/actors Peter and David Paul.
Plus, there's an alternative ending that would have ended the film on a down note, with fellow serial killer, Owen (Arliss Howard, of Full Metal Jacket fame) killing the Knoxes after they make fun of him wanting to tag along with them. Howard is still in the film, popping up in the beginning diner scene and later on, as he helps guide the Knoxes out of the prison, but he just simply disappears out of the film afterwards.
Stone felt that the Knoxes were earnest in wanting to change after the Indian incident (another highlight of the film- love the snake story, and BTW, most of those snakes were real- no CGI there), and that they deserved to live, in spite of their actions throughout, and felt that audiences would agree. Some decidedly did not, and thought that, by letting them live, Stone was encouraging others to try and get away with such activities.
But I think Stone made the right call, for what the film is. A lot of people miss the point of the film, which, as Stone details in his commentary (and also in this fascinating interview here) was about the fact that society was starting to turn killers into celebrities themselves. He was satirizing that fact and taking it to its most logical- and insane- conclusion.
In other words, he wasn't glorifying violence, he was warning of the issues with not taking it seriously enough, and equating it with just being "something to watch on TV." Obviously, things have only gotten worse in that department, with the rise of tabloid and reality TV.
Boy, was this film ahead of its time. It's no wonder that some people were taken aback by it, but I think if you take it for what it is- an over-the-top satire of the media and its glorification of violence- and meet it on its own terms, it's still pretty relevant to this day, if not more so, given the divided times we live in.
On a more personal note, I also have to give it up to Nine Inch Nails' frontman Trent Reznor for the bang-up job he did on the soundtrack. I know some people hated the way it incorporated film dialogue into the music, but it's all very much in keeping with most of Tarantino's other soundtracks, and in that sense, is perhaps one of the more Tarantino-esque aspects of the whole movie, even if Reznor's tastes in music are much more eclectic.
But I'm not going to lie- this movie's soundtrack got me into so much music that I might not have gotten into otherwise. Yes, you could say the same about pretty much every QT soundtrack, but in this case, it's genuinely some of my most beloved music ever. Before this film, I had never heard Leonard Cohen, Diamanda Galás, Barry Adamson, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and plenty more where that came from and only knew Peter Gabriel for his hits, not his phenomenal soundtrack work.
I've since put together an "expanded" soundtrack playlist with every single piece of music I could find from the film, and that's a whole lot of music- check out this credits page on IMDb. I listen to it regularly, even more so than I watch the movie. It's arguably my favorite of all the soundtracks to a QT film, even if he doesn't really consider it one- albeit with good reason.
As for where it ranks overall in the QT oeuvre for me, you'll just have to wait and see until we get to the final article, but it's up there, that's for sure. If you haven't seen this, what in the world are you waiting for? Granted, it's an acquired taste, and some might find it incomprehensible and jarring, to say nothing of offensive.
But if you dismissed it in the past, have a listen to that Oliver Stone DVD/Blu-Ray commentary- it might just help you re-think your feelings on it. The behind-the-scenes docs are also great, and worth it for the sight of a spoon-wielding (a little on the nose!), strung out RDJ, a loooong way from Iron Man. I know some people hate the movie, but I just love everything about it. To each their own, I guess.
Join me next time for QT's big breakthrough: one of his all-time classic movies, Pulp Fiction. Thanks for reading! 😎
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