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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Michael After Midnight: Natural Born Killers

Long before Joker taught us that we lived in a society… there was Mickey and Mallory Knox.

Natural Born Killers is a satire that focuses on the relationship between crime, media, and pop culture, and how the latter two make the former a hugely exacerbated issue. This movie is from 1994, mind you. In 1994 a movie came out talking about how the media sensationalizes murder and violence to the point where perpetrators become household names and counterculture icons years before Columbine happened, years before the internet made it horrendously easy to find access to gruesome true crime stuff, it was just a film that was absolutely ahead of its time! And yet… as is the norm for works like this, some people take it at face value, because no matter how blatant or obvious a satire is (and trust me, “subtle” is one thing this movie IS NOT), some people take things too far. The thing is, in this case, “too far” translates to “actively committed horrible murders in twisted tribute to the main characters of this film.”

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; let’s look at the actual substance of the film, first and foremost.

The movie is actually an altered version of an exploitation screenplay written by none other than Quentin Tarantino, Mr. Foot Fetish himself. Tarantino has gone n record as absolutely loathing this movie due to the extensive rewrites and unlike the other screenplay he wrote but did not direct, True Romance, he refuses to acknowledge this as part of his Tarantinoverse. Here’s the thing, though: I honestly think whatever Tarantino had planned for this would not nearly have been as memorable as this movie is. Yes, this movie is over the top and really beats you over the head with its message, but I think the performances and surrealism really carry it, the latter in particular being something I think Tarantino would not have utilized well. Tarantino does a lot of things well, but he doesn’t do surrealism, at least not to the extent Oliver Stone does in this movie.

Perhaps the best example of this surrealism is the sitcom-style flashback sequence, which shows our leading lady Mallory’s shitty home life before she met Mickey and began her career as a serial killer. There’s a laugh track, an offbeat corny vibe, and Rodney Dangerfield is even here playing Mallory’s dad! Haha, so wacky! He’s a rapist who abuses his own daughter and is absolutely horrifyingly creepy! It’s actually a brilliant use of an actor playing against type; it kind of reminds me of how they used Jon Lovitz in Southland Tales, except this movie is marginally less insane and is legitimately good rather than hilariously bad. The entire sequence, and numerous other chunks of the movie, feel like an insanely bad trip, and that’s exactly what I appreciate about it. I’m a big fan of surreal movies in general (I love Lynch’s Eraserhead and unironically love Death Bed, for instance), and the fact that this one has such a solid message underneath it all helps a lot.

Of course, the surrealism only gets you so far, and Rodney Dangerfield is only in a small part of the movie; who’s carrying it the rest of the time? Well, we have our leads played by Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson, with Harrelson in particular defining his career for the next couple of decades with this role. Gone is the lovable idiot from Cheers, here is the crazy gun-toting violent loner we’d see in just about every role he’d play after this.Even to this day, this is still one of my favorite roles of his. Rounding out the rest of the cast are the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore, all doing the jobs they need to do excellently.

So overall, this is a very good movie, with a great cast, lots of surrealism, and a message about how the media just loves to glorify murderers that resonates strongly today. Still, there are some problems with the movie, such as the lack of subtlety. I get that with a message like this it might be best to not hide it behind smoke and mirrors, but I really feel like Stone could have reeled it in a little bit and still made an effective movie. Sure, I think Tarantino is a moron for hating the sitcom sequence, which is absolutely the highlight of the film, but seriously, some of this could have been dialed back, particularly the ending bits which do drag on a fair bit and at the point they occur are kind of beating the moral into the ground. I also feel like the fact Mickey and Mallory get away with everything is a bit of an awkward ending, especially since an alternate cut has them killed by another killer, but at the same time it might be surmised that Stone may have done as many audience members did and just liked Mickey and Mallory too much to kill them… ironically falling prey to the very thing his movie is raging against.

Ah, but now comes the elephant in the room… unlike movies like Joker, which journalists seem to really want to inspire shootings and violence, this movie ACTUALLY DID inspire killings perpetrated by sickos who decided to emulate the characters in the film. Most of it was done by teenagers, which means yes, there are a lot of school shootings tied to this, and yes, the Columbine cunts are one of the copycats listed on the Wikipedia page. It’s honestly depressing this movie inspired so many sick fucks to commit murder and become glorified for doing so that it warrants an entire Wikipedia page. Again, though, I really don’t want to put a lot of blame on the film here, because the movie is so relentlessly in-your-face about what the moral is that it kind of baffles me how anyone could misconstrue it so badly as to see it as an endorsement for murder. Maybe it just worked a bit too well at highlighting the problem of sensationalization of violent crime in the media, and when twisted minds see a movie saying “This is bad that the media does this!” they end up just hearing “...the media does this!” and from there go to horrible extremes to achieve the very fame the movie is telling you is disgusting and abhorrent.

I still definitely think this movie is good, and if you can stomach intense violence and preachiness that would make Parker and Stone blush and turn away, and you also have a taste for surrealism, this is a really solid film, one I’d argue is one of the best films of the 90s even. It does a lot well, but I feel like its legacy was unfortunately muddied by the very worst kind of fan you could possibly have, which has led to the movie having a weird level of obscurity where it isn’t unknown, but I hardly ever see it talked about on the same level as other 90s films. It’s definitely not a film that teenagers or anyone who hasn’t fully developed their moral compass or critical thinking skills should watch, but it’s definitely an underappreciated classic, albeit one whose underappreciated nature is understandable due to the numerous tragedies attached to its name. It isn’t the movie’s fault at all, but when the Columbine cunts are citing you as inspiration… it’s hard to ever really detach yourself from that.

#Michael After Midnight #Natural Born Killers #NBK #Woody Harrelson #Oliver Stone #black comedy #satire #sensationalism

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