Review of Wild at Heart (1990) by Matt H — 04 Feb 2009

This is David Lynch's best movie. It's scene after scene of weird characters, but they're fully fleshed out weird characters. They aren't that way just for the convenience of it. All of them have some absurdly valid backstory which, when combine them, snowball into a sort of freak cabal that propels the plot. It's a rare case of a movie being totally honest with it's characterizations and plot, whose end result also just so happens to be exactly what the audience wants it to be. The scene where Cage throws a lit cigarette on the ground then punches out a guy for trying to dance with with Dern so that he falls on the cigarette and burns himself is my all time favorite scene in a movie. No other filmmakers pay attention to that type of detail, and if they did nobody would ever have to worry about the future state of quality movies ever again.

Note: Willem Dafoe is flat out SCARY in this movie.