Day 79 - Natural Born Killers



Day 79            Natural Born Killers [1994]
                          
Screenplay                    Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Richard Rutowski & David Veloz
Director                         Oliver Stone
Cinematography            Robert Richardson
Leads                            Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore
Production                      Regency Enterprises

IMDb                                 7.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes                 47%

I’m not sure what to make of this one. At all. I will definitely have to watch it again. I was expecting another great Tarantino script, what I got instead was Tarantino on PCP. It was somewhere between From Dusk Till Dawn (Day 40) and True Romance (Day 77). Another couple on a crime spree, this time Mickey (Harrelson) and Mallory (Lewis) murdering everyone they came across, apart from the one witness per crime scene they leave behind so everyone knows who’s done it. To be fair I think Tarantino wrote the original, which was then heavily edited by Stone, Veloz and Rutowski. Something tells me this film would have been better without their influence. But then again it may have been too similar to the aforementioned films if it hadn’t been edited. Originally, Clarence from True Romance was supposed to be writing this film as part of that film, but they cut it out and decided to make this film separately. It’s a bloodbath, visceral as hell. I can barely remember the plot as there was so much to take in visually. It’s making reviewing it pretty hard. The acting was frantic, Downey Jr. in a role I haven’t seen too often so I enjoyed that. Look. I’m going to have to level with you and say that this is a double watcher. I just can’t make my mind up as to whether I liked it. It sits perfectly on the fence. I’ll watch it again one day. I suppose that it must be good if I’m happy to watch it twice…

Acting                             3 / 4
Writing                            3 / 4
Cinematography              3 / 4
Music                              2 / 4
HWF rating              2.5 / 4