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Natural Born Killers - 1/4
Oliver Stone is a mediocre director who has skated by with a generously high reputation built on bad films that make money. Somehow he seems to be a good screenwriter. Platoon is a great film but perhaps his direction was more a product of his involvement in the war and his brilliance as a writer than his aptitude as a director.
Now that I've said all of that, Natural Born Killers is a Badlands rip off with acid western direction and a real waste of talent in the few roles the film has.
It looks like Hunter S Thompson directed Bonnie And Clyde...but Hunter S Thompson was a loudmouth junkie loser so I'm not sure why anybody would want to see through his eyes.
As an indictment of the behaviour exhibited in the film by the protagonists it fails on every level as it makes no attempt to demonise their behaviour, simply explaining away their crimes by way of the film's title and some bad taste vignettes of their early home lives.
Everybody is a bastard but the kindly native Americans, nobody is righteously punished despite the brutal and complete annihilation of the majority of the cast.
This is a film that is feeble under even the slightest scrutiny and despite Stone's insistence on it as a morality story that doesn't glorify violence it is basically murder porn for 90's weirdo's.
I think everything has it's place and this was just bad enough that I'd say it belongs next to Maniac Cop or Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer in terms of worth. I don't resent these movies, I just have no desire to see them again now that I'm no longer bound by the youth enticing mystique of Adult rated movies.
I have to say that this was particularly bad, even in a week that included Downsizing.
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