Review of Natural Born Killers (1994) by Wesley R — 05 Feb 2011

A highly-energized and often frantic film with over-the-top acting to illustrate the obsession our culture has over blood-lust with the subtlety of an atomic bomb being dropped on top of a nuclear power plant.

While the film is visually captivating in its use of cinematography it becomes apparent that Stone is so in love with the visual aspects of this film that the story suffers. Quentin Tarantino originally wrote the screenplay and the plot was going to focus on Robert Downey Jr.

's character and the media's obsession with violence. Personally, I felt this would have been the route to go, but Stone instead chose to focus on the two killers in love on almost a mythic level.

This is a pretty fascinating and grotesque satire on how the media tends to cover violence, but it would be nice to have a sense of reality every once in a while so we can see how ridiculous it all is.

The killers are not interesting or complex at all and have done nothing worthy of all the attention they get from the media. Yet everything in this film is so stylized that this point can easily be forgotten or misunderstood.

I don't believe that art causes people to do terrible things. The only thing that causes people to behave the way they do is themselves; however, art can give inspiration on how people can live or act.

While any art can be misinterpreted this film has such a track record of horrible crimes inspired by this film that I have to believe that Stone himself ironically mimics the media he satires and fails at making his point as clear as it should have been.