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Released by: Warner Brothers
Released on: 10/13/2009
Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore
Year: 1995
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The Movie:
From one extreme to the other, Stone followed up the mellow Heaven & Earth with this bastardized adaptation of a Quentin Tarantino script. Natural Born Killers follows a mass murdering delivery boy named Mickey Knox (played by Woody Harrelson in a role about as far removed from his stint on Cheers as you can get) who falls in love his customer's daughter, Mallory (Juliette Lewis).
After they fall for each other, Mickey kills her sexually abusive father (the late Rodney Dangerfield in his sleaziest performance ever!) and her mother (Edie McClurg) and whisks her off on a whirlwind trip across the country, killing almost everyone they come into contact with though always leaving one person alive report back to the media. This enables them to become media superstars as their images are plastered all over the television, newspapers, magazines, and radio.
A Geraldo-style investigative reporter Wayne Gale (Robert Downy Jr.) decides to boost his ratings by interviewing them in prison once they're apprehended. The cop in charge, Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore), has plans of his own however and things take a turn for the worse. A prison riot ensues and Mickey and Mallory take Gale hostage and use him as leverage against the warden (Tommy Lee Jones at his most manic) and as a tool for their ultimate media feeding frenzy.
Some say the film is an exercise in style over substance with its rapid cutting (there are rumored to be over three thousand edits in the film), nearly subliminal images and use of mixed media but Natural Born Killers functions quite well as a black satire on 'serial killer culture' and how the American press embraces such atrocities and disasters. Case in point, Wayne Gale's tendency to sensationalize and exploit the events portrayed in the film all in order to achieve higher ratings with no regard for human life. While the movie consistently bashes you over the head with its message (calling it heavy handed would seem to be an understatement), it is never less than sheer entertainment even when it's preaching at you. Stone lets loose with both barrels in an ultra-violent exercise in satirical excess.
The film also benefits from some excellent performances, with Woody Harrelson really stealing the show. Imagine catching this one in the theater and seeing the kindly bartender from Cheers killing his way across the country, tripping on hallucinogenic drugs and having rough, surly sex! This was very definitely a career changing film for Harrelson who has gone on to tackle some challenging roles, the most obvious example being his lead performance in The People Vs. Larry Flynt. Juliet Lewis is a little too over the top in some scenes and borders on the obnoxious but in the context of this already over the top film, her efforts seem to fit. Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic as the prison warden, frothing at the mouth and spitting his way through the riot scene chewing as much scenery as he can get his nicotine stained teeth through. Throw in some sleazy performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Sizemore and you've got a very solid lead cast who handle the material very well.
Warner Brothers released the theatrical cut of the film on Blu-ray back in 2008 and now returns to the well with the unrated director's cut of the film. This version runs approximately four minutes longer than its theatrical counterpart and features a fair bit more violence and carnage. As such, it's a much stronger (and in many ways more effective) picture.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Natural Born Killers is presented in a 1080p VC-1 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that preserves the picture's intended theatrical aspect ratio. This transfer does a decent job with some funky material. If you've seen the movie before you know that the movie makes use of traditional film but also various other video formats so you can't realistically expect the consistency of a picture that was completed using one format. Some scenes look nice and sharp, other scenes (the cut to the Coca-Cola polar bear commercial for example) looks like a VHS tape. The black and white footage is grainy while much of the color footage is nice and clear. There is a little bit of print damage throughout showing up in the form of the odd speck here and there but that's rarely distracting. Color reproduction is all over the place, but again, this is how the movie has always looked and this is how the movie is supposed to look. There's considerably more detail present on this Blu-ray release than there was on the SD release and you'll really notice this on facial close ups and medium shots more than you will when looking at objects in the background which still look a little bit soft. There aren't any compression artifacts to worry about nor is there much in the way of edge enhancement to notice. If you're familiar with the film, you'll very likely be quite pleased with the picture. If you've never seen it before, well, this is a weird looking film and the transfer replicates that.
English audio options are supplied in a 48 kHz 640 kbps Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround Sound mix as well as in a standard Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix. Optional subtitles are supplied in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Bahasa, Bulgarian, Dutch, Finnish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish, Thai and Turkish for the feature only while closed captioning is provided in English only, again just for the feature.
The standard Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix sounds identical to its standard definition counterpart while the English TrueHD mix shows some very obvious improvements. The first place that you'll probably notice it is with the gunshots, as they really pack a serious punch here. There are a few key scenes that really kick once the soundtrack flies into the mix (the bit with L7's Shitlist comes to mind) and bass response is tighter and stronger throughout. There's a lot of depth to the mix throughout the film with plenty of surround and rear channel action to keep things nice and lively. Dialogue stays clean and clear and the levels are all properly balanced. There aren't any problems with hiss or distortion and really, this mix is pretty much fantastic from start to finish.
Warner has included some pretty good extras, starting with the commentary from Oliver Stone. Those who have heard Stone's commentaries in the past will know that the guy is never at a loss for words and often able to offer plenty of keen introspection into his work and his creative process. With this movie in particular, being as hyper active as it is, Stone's dissection of the film is quite fascinating. He talks not only about making the picture, casting it, shooting it and the like but also about some of the controversy that blew up around it during its release, problems with censorship, and the general politics of movie making in America. He's quite blunt and upfront about his thoughts on the movie and about the film's message and importance and as usual, he makes for a great speaker.
The Blu-ray release also includes two featurettes starting with Chaos Rising, a piece that serves as a fairly general documentary on the making of the movie. All of the principal cast and crewmembers pop up here and offer up their thoughts on the picture, its legacy, its controversy and its message and offer up some refreshingly frank commentary on the picture. This is a pretty intelligent piece with a fair bit more going for it than your standard 'making of' PR piece. The second featurette is NBK Evolution, and it's an interesting look at the influence that the film seems to have had on current filmmaking and pop culture in general. Stone, Harrelson and Lewis all pop up here and offer some insightful thoughts on how and why this has come to be. Also worth watching is the Charlie Rose Show Interview Segment (11:38) where Stone discusses the making of the movie. Rose starts off quoting Stone's ex-wife, who abhorred the film and then giving his own take on the material. It's an interesting and intelligent interview that allows Stone to deliver a few not so subtle political diatribes and spar a bit with Rose.
Also included are some deleted scenes (six in total), an alternate ending (with introduction), a video introduction from Oliver Stone, and the theatrical trailer. Inside the keepcase is a full color booklet containing some cast and crew bios and some thoughts on the film from Oliver Stone.
The Final Word:
The theatrical cut may offer up nicer packaging (it came in a hardcover book) but the unrated director's cut is the better version of the picture and since the A/V quality is pretty much the same as the earlier release and since this version contains plenty of decent extra features, it's hard not to recommend it over the theatrical cut. The picture holds up well, it's entertaining, exciting, and it pushes a few buttons that deserve to be pushed. It's hard not to see it as excessive, but at least there's a point to it and it's impressive in its scope and its effect.