Movie Description
Oliver Stone's over-the-top satire on America's worshipful fascination with tabloid criminals stars Woody Harrelson as Mickey Knox and Juliette Lewis as girlfriend-wife Mallory Wilson. Commencing with the dual murder of Mallory's sexually abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and grossly negligent mother (Edie McClurg), the anomic couple take off on a three-week killing spree across the country, telling everyone who they are so that they get the credit for their crimes. The media are immediately enthralled with the couple, especially Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.), the bloodthirsty host of a tabloid TV show who follows their every move. By the time they're finally arrested, they've become such huge media stars that the cops treat them more like celebrities than criminals. Even the maniacal limelight-hogging warden of the Batongaville State Prison, Dwight McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones), is in awe. Stone pulls out all the stops in the prison riot, as the unwitting Gale becomes an unwilling participant in his own broadcast of the event. Again the director switches from film to video, from color to black and white, from sitcom parody to newsreel parody, and from one film stock to another, hoping to jar the audience out of its complacency with visual hyperbole.
| Credits | | Cast: | Rodney Dangerfield, Tom Sizemore, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson |
| Details | | Edition: | Spanish Subtitled | | Sound: | HiFi Sound, Stereo Sound, Surround Sound |
Notes
Theatrical release: August 26, 1994.
The prison riot scene took place at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois--342 maximum security prisoners were cleared to act in the Hollywood riot.
The Director's Cut restores footage that was edited from the original release version so it could receive an MPAA R rating. It also includes seven complete scenes that Oliver Stone had voluntarily excised from the movie for its theatrical release. One of these sequences features Ashley Judd as the sister of one of Mickey and Mallory's victims.
"'It's such an outrageous story,' [Oliver Stone] said, 'and in the time between oppositioning the film and making it, tremendous things have happened on America's landscape.'"--interviewed by Bernard Weinraub, New York Times, 8/16/1994
"I shoot good violence. I mean, I know I do."--Oliver Stone
Editorial Reviews
Ranked #1 in Entertainment Weekly's "10 Favorite Films of the '90s" -- "...Fevered genius....[A] hypnotic, revolutionary head trip..."
Entertainment Weekly - p.159 - Owen Gleiberman (04/01/2000)
"...The movie is a technical marvel, stunningly photographed..."
Rolling Stone - p.83-7 - Peter Travers (09/08/1994)
"...Stone's vision is impassioned, alarming, visually inventive, characteristically overpowering..."
New York Times - p.C1 - Janet Maslin (08/26/1994)
"...[A] brilliantly outrageous film..."
Film Comment - p.80-1 - Harlan Kennedy (11/01/1994)
"...[Harrelson and Lewis are] superb at exaggerating the archetypes of cool psychopathology..."
Sight and Sound - p.44-5 - Nick James (03/01/1995)
"...NATURAL BORN KILLERS is like a slap in the face, waking us up to what's happening..."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (08/26/1994)
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