Review of Badlands (1974) by Spangle — 11 Jun 2015

This film is classic Terrence Malick. Exquisitely shot with a great premise and execution of that premise, Badlands is a film that suffers because of its writing. The acting is fine with Martin Sheen being the stronger of the two and completely embodying his character.

Sissy Spacek was alright with moments of brilliance, but also moments where she struggled mightily. The costume design here is also quite good. However, back to the writing, the story is very good. It is well developed and interesting to watch unfold.

Yet, the characters are terrible, as they act irrationally and nonsensically throughout the film. The dialogue is also horrendous and completely lacking any sense of reality. At no moment does this film feel authentic and that is due to the terrible dialogue and characters.

While the story may be interesting, it suffers due to those two elements that really suck you out of the film. Badlands is probably Malick's strongest film that I have seen thus far, which is sad, because you can tell he is really brilliant, but he has no idea how to write a script.