Natural Born Killers (film)
Tagline : The Media Made Them Superstars.
Natural
Born Killers is a 1994 satirical movie directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody
Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. It features appearances by Rodney Dangerfield, Robert
Downey Jr., Tom Sizemore, and Tommy Lee Jones.
The original screenplay was written by Quentin Tarantino and revised by Stone, Richard Rutowski, and David Veloz. While much of the dialogue is word for word, the revisions change the focus of the film from journalist Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.) to Mickey and Mallory. The two went from being a normal married couple who suddenly decide to go on a killing spree to unwed social outcasts who were molested and beaten by their parents. Tarantino—unhappy with the rewritten version—publicly disowned the script and asked that his name be removed from the screenwriting credits. He subsequently received a "story by" credit.
Natural Born Killers is a uniquely directed feature, because of the wide range of camera angles, filters, lenses and special effects used during its production. Much of the movie seems to be told from a "television-perspective," in fact, some scenes are satirical of television shows of the time, including a serious scene which is told in the farce of a situational comedy about a dysfunctional family. Commercials which were commonly on the air at the time of the film's release make brief, intermittent appearances.
The film intends to highlight the sensationalized way crimes are depicted in the media and the manner in which some killers have been glamorized by the media. The film was criticized for its excessively graphic and violent content. Some critics said that Oliver Stone was indulging the same kind of behavior that he criticized from the media, while others said that the film was a dead-on satire of the modern media but one that was ultimately headache-inducing.
Cast
Woody Harrelson - Mickey Knox
Juliette Lewis - Mallory Knox
Tom Sizemore - Det. Jack Scagnetti
Rodney Dangerfield - Ed Wilson, Mallory's
Dad
Everett Quinton - Deputy Warden Wurlitzer
Jared Harris -
London Boy
Pruitt Taylor Vince - Deputy Warden Kavanaugh
Edie McClurg - Mallory's Mom
Russell Means - Old Indian
Lanny Flaherty -
Earl
O-Lan Jones - Mabel
Robert Downey Jr-. Wayne Gale
Richard Lineback - Sonny
Kirk Baltz - Roger
Ed White - Pinball
Cowboy
Plot
" The film opens with Mickey Knox (Harrelson) and his wife Mallory (Lewis) in a roadside cafe. Mallory is offended when a nasty hick tries to hit on her. He asks her to dance, she dances for a short while. Mallory then punches him in the face and kicks him several times, embarrassing him. He tries to fight back, but is easily put down by Mallory. She jumps on him and twists his neck to kill him. Mickey, meanwhile, stabs two other customers and shoots the chef and the waitress (with a drawn-out bullettime sequence). They leave one witness alive, as is their custom, to "tell the tale."
Woody Harrelson as Mickey KnoxAfter
the titles, there is a flashback sequence to how the murderous pair met up: Mickey
was a delivery man who turned up at the house where Mallory lived with her physically
and sexually abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield), her mother, and Kevin, her younger
brother. The scene is portrayed as a sitcom with a canned laughter track, the
"audience" laughing hardest when Mallory is subjected to lewd comments
and molestation by her repulsive father. When Mickey arrives with a delivery of
beef, he falls in love with Mallory and whisks her away on a date, stealing her
father's car in the process. Mickey is arrested and imprisoned for car theft,
but escapes and returns to Mallory's house. The two kill her father by drowning
him in the fishtank, and burn her mother alive in her bed. They spare her ten-year-old
brother. Mickey then takes Mallory away with him.
Back in the present the pair continue their crime-spree (which bears several parallels to Bonnie and Clyde and the Starkweather-Fugate case), slaughtering their way across the southwest United States and ultimately claiming fifty-two victims. Following them are two characters who have an obsessive interest in Mickey and Mallory for the purposes of acquiring fame and glory, as well as furthering their own careers. The first is a policeman, Detective Jack Scagnetti (Sizemore), who is seemingly in love with Mallory. Scagnetti wants to achieve hero status by capturing the pair, though it is plainly revealed that Scagnetti has a lifelong obsession with serial killers after seeing his mother shot and killed by Charles Whitman when he was five. The second is journalist Wayne Gale (Downey), who hosts a show called American Maniacs, profiling serial killers in a blatantly sensationalist way. Various clips of his program on Mickey and Mallory are shown, with Gale sounding outraged as he details the pair's crimes, although off-air he clearly regards their crimes as a fantastic way of boosting his show's ratings. It is Gale who is mostly responsible for elevating Mickey and Mallory into heroes, with his show featuring interviews with people expressing their admiration for the mass killers as if they were film stars.
While lost in the desert, Mickey and Mallory are taken in by a Navajo man (known as "Old Indian") Russell Means and his grandson. After the duo fall asleep, the Old Indian begins chanting beside the fire, invoking nightmares in Mickey about his abusive father and mother. Mickey wakes up in a rage and shoots Old Indian before he realizes what he is doing. Mallory and Mickey are both traumatized, marking the first time the couple feel guilty for a murder. Mallory exclaims, "You killed life!" implying Old Indian was more worthy of living than their previous victims. While running from the scene through the desert, the two are bitten repeatedly by rattlesnakes.
They go to a drugstore to find snakebite antidote, but the police interfere and a gunfight ensues, ending when Scagnetti captures them at gunpoint. The film then jumps ahead one year. After a surreal trial that is shown in a flashback in clips from 'American Maniacs', the homicidal couple have been imprisoned but are shortly due to be shipped to a mental hospital after being declared insane.
Scagnetti arrives at the prison and meets up with Warden Dwight McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones) and the two devise a plan to get rid of Mickey and Mallory: McClusky will arrange for Scagnetti to transport the Knoxs to the mental hospital. Alone with the pair during transport, Scagnetti will shoot and kill them claiming that they were trying to escape. Gale is also at the prison and persuades Mickey to agree to a live interview to air immediately after the Super Bowl. At the time, Mallory is held in solitary confinement elsewhere in the prison, awaiting her transport to the mental hospital.
As planned, Mickey is interviewed by Gale. He gives a speech about how crime is a normal part of humanity, describes enlightenment through murder and declares himself a "natural born killer." His words inspire the other inmates (who are watching the interview on TV in the recreation room) and incite them to riot. During the riot, the inmates subdue, torture, and murder nearly all of the prison guards and their inmate informants.
Warden McClusky heads down to the control room, leaving Mickey alone with Gale, the film crew and several guards. Using a lengthy joke complete with hand gestures as a diversion, Mickey elbow-smashes a guard in the face and steals his shotgun. Mickey kills most of the guards and takes the survivors and film crew hostage. He leads them through the prison riot to find Mallory. Gale follows, giving a live television report as people are slaughtered all around him. Meanwhile, Mallory is being savagely beaten in her cell by Scagnetti for refusing to submit to his attempts at seduction (for which she attacked him). Still live on national television, Mickey engages in a short Mexican Standoff with Scagnetti, eventually feigning concession to lower Scagnetti's guard. Scagnetti is then brutally killed by Mallory.
After being rescued by a mysterious prisoner named Owen (Arliss Howard), Mickey and Mallory take cover in a blood-splattered shower-room. By this time Gale has snapped and has shot a number of prison guards himself, finding the killing a thrill. Warden McClusky is outside the shower room with dozens of guards. Obsessed with killing Mickey and Mallory, McClusky threatens to storm the shower room, despite the protests of his guards who insist that there are more pressing problems, namely the hundreds of other rioting inmates heading their way.
Mickey and Mallory, together with their savior, Owen, eventually manage to escape, holding guns to the heads of Wayne Gale and a prison-guard hostage, Gale's camera still capturing everything. After Mickey and Mallory flee, McClusky and his guards are massacred by hordes of inmates who eventually burst through into the area. In the director's cut of the film, there is a shot of McClusky's head on a pike.
In a rural location Mickey and Mallory give a final interview to Wayne Gale before - much to his surprise and horror - they execute him, capturing it on the camera (their one survivor).
The couple are then shown in an RV together, with Mickey driving and Mallory watching their two children play.
In the film's alternate ending, Mickey and Mallory are killed by Owen.
Denis
Leary and Ashley Judd both made cameo appearances in the film, although both were
edited out of the theatrical release.
Tom Sizemore plays a detective named
Jack Scagnetti, presumably a reference to the unseen but mentioned Seymore Scagnetti,
a parole officer in the film Reservoir Dogs, which was written and directed by
Natural Born Killers screenwriter Quentin Tarantino.
The prison riot was filmed
during four weeks at Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois. In the first
two weeks on location at the prison, the extras were actual inmates with rubber
weapons. After a lock-down, the Illinois Department of Corrections required the
production to use paid extras from the outside for the remaining two weeks.[citation
needed]
The character of Mickey was inspired by real-life spree killer Charles
Starkweather.
After the murderer of one of novelist John Grisham's friends
cited Natural Born Killers as an inspiration, Grisham spoke out against Oliver
Stone and the film itself. When Warner Bros. was looking for a lead for the film
adaptation of Grisham's A Time To Kill and suggested Woody Harrelson, Grisham,
who had director and cast approval, said Harrelson would never be in a film he
had anything to do with. It's worth noting that Grisham has cited other reasons
for not wanting Harrelson to play the role that Matthew McConaughey ended up playing,
most notably that Harrelson "looked kind of dumbbell-ish".
It is
the only screenplay with a Quentin Tarantino "Story By" credit that
he did not also write and get credited with the screenplay as well. His original
screenplay was bought and rewritten, and Tarantino asked for and received only
the story credit. He has commented that Stone turned it into the kind of film
he would have liked had it not been his script.
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