Review of Natural Born Killers (1994) by Justin A — 20 Mar 2011

As influential as Stone is on other directors, this shows that he can be equally influenced in turn; taking on the style of the edgiest directors of the time - Tarantino and Lynch, and putting his own slant on their work. The film follows a 'Bonnie and Clyde' style couple of mass murderers, trawling the country for their next victims in the hope to increase their notoriety to a psycho-obsessed media.

Stone pays tribute to the diversity of media styles, giving recognisable genres of film and T.V disturbing twists; most notably for me in the scene depicting domestic violence and abuse in the style of a situation comedy. This shows the Lynch influence of scratching the suface of 'picture-postcard, perfect America' to show the awful truth beneath. He also takes on the Tarantino style of showing violence in a comedic and comic-book way; such as showing the murderers in comic-strip style at times.

Challenging, interesting, but relying rather too heavily on other film-maker's styles to be as original as some of his other films.