Cheap Natural Born Killers (DVD) (Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis) (Oliver Stone) Price

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Customer Reviews of Natural Born Killers

Violence as a media event
"Natural Born Killers" is not about glorifying violence; it's a chilling parody of the American fascination with violence. The quick changes from color to black and white and back again, interspersed with animated sequences, point up the satiric nature of the movie. Mickey and Mallory, very well played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, are two killing machines without heart or soul or conscience; their only redeeming virtues are their love for each other. They aren't meant to be sympathetic characters and they're not, but Oliver Stone's direction makes them pale in depravity besides some of the other characters -- the sadistic warden, the despicable detective and his morbid fascination with Mallory, Mallory's nauseating, sexually abusive father, and above all, Robert Downey's superb characterization of the media pimp who feeds off blood and gore. The last scene in the movie, of Mickey and Mallory on the road with their two children, and Mallory about to deliver a third at any minute, underscores the whole message of the film; violence feeds on itself and begets yet more violence. Those viewers who were most upset by the movie missed its message. "Natural Born Killers" is a brilliant, disturbing depiction of the shallowness of American culture at the end of the 20th century.

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Violence As Art
I cannot watch violence, a situation that has greatly hampered my movie-going experience in the last decade or so. And yet I sat through the unspeakable, murderous violence in Oliver Stone's brilliant film without flinching. Why? The more violent and outrageous it got, the more anti-violent the message.

Woody Harrelson gives the performance of his career as a serial killer who teams up with a troubled young girl (Juliette Lewis) in a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde murder spree. Stone leaps from satire to serious in a crazy pastiche of images, from Rodney Dangerfield (!!), the girl's sadistic, abusive father who succumbs to one of the most brutal of the depicted murders, to Robert Downey Jr. as a self-important TV journalist whose docudrama on the two killers ends up hero worship.

Jumping crazily from angst to brutality to tragedy to high camp, this film manages to put violence in its place by laying bare its sheer madness. This is an unforgettable film. I know Stone has taken a lot of heat for his self-indulgence, but in this case, I think it works perfectly.

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"In the media circus of life, they were the main attraction"
This true masterpiece directed by acclaimed director and writer, Oliver Stone, is avant-garde filmaking at its breaking point. The whole theme of Natural Born Killers is that the media is obsessive over violence and brutality; therefore, the extreme violence in the movie is used as a satire, not as entertainment. Definitely one of the most controversial movies ever released, especially in the 1990s when the Simpson trial, Rodney King, and the Menendez brothers became celebrity darlings because of the mass media and not because of anything credible. The acting by all the leads, especially Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, is amazing. Their true love is another theme that proves vital in Natural Born Killers. It is the one and only thing that can hold people together when faced with such things as violence and a tormented childhood. The actual violence portrayed is not even that graphic after one viewing. It is the break-neck pacing and high-speed cuts that give the movie its violent intensity. If not Woody Harrelson, then definitely Juliette Lewis should have received some sort of Academy nomination, such as an Emmy, if not an Oscar.

Oliver Stone beats one in the face with this media spectacle that boasts every type of film style imaginable. Everything from 36 mm to black and white to animation to a video camera to color tinting to fast and slow motion is used in abundance with fascinating success. Roger Ebert said, "Seeing this movie once is not enough," and he is right! A must see.

Brilliant Filmaking!