Two Thumbs Down for ‘Natural Born Killers’ : Stone’s Method Only Shatters His Message

Critic Kenneth Turan’s assessment of Oliver Stone’s film “Natural Born Killers” gave Stone far too much credit (“Stone Removes the Gloves in ‘Killers,’ ” Calendar, Aug. 26). Turan felt that because of Stone’s “directorial energy” the viewer “can’t help but be affected by its sensory barrage,” yet also correctly states that Stone’s attempt to “mock our societal fascination with bloodletting, to hold up a cracked mirror and literally force a reconsideration of what we’re doing as a culture and where it seems to be leading” does not “come off as planned.”

In fact, Stone’s effort is an abject failure, and regrettably will serve as yet more fuel for the fire in the glorification of violence.

This meditation on violence, tabloid media and the public obsession for both is an offensive assault by Stone, cartoon-quality bloodletting, carnage on a grand scale, all designed as a hyper-surreal meat-cleaver to smash through our collective desensitization to violence by giving us a dose too large to handle.

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But Stone’s purgative tonic is just sweet enough that the medicine does not cause aversion to violence but rather serves as the latest and most potent narcotic to those hooked on blood and fear. The irreverence and campiness in the film dilutes whatever rebuke of violence was intended, distorting it even (by today’s standards) to a quasi-heroic affirmation that if violence is done with daring and style, it’s cool.

Stone has borrowed liberally from other filmmakers--we see Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” violence-aversion therapy images played out throughout, as if we as viewers paid for a session with our admission ticket. Current blood king Quentin Tarantino seems to be the gunslinger the macho Stone is attempting to outdo, upping the body count and gore factor beyond the typical Tarantino fare (“Natural Born Killers” is based on a story by Tarantino, a writer-director); and director David Lynch is represented everywhere in the film, from the monstrously hideous yet otherwise mundane characters (Tommy Lee Jones’ plaid-suited, spittle-spewing prison warden, to character Mallory’s family), to the flashing strobe effects, to ghost characters floating and appearing.

Stone seems determined to prove he can play with the modern kids on the filmmaking scene, and what Turan praises as “taking the gloves off with a vengeance” seems really like so much derivative posturing.

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Stone shows restraint for once in injecting his stock-in-trade political tirades into a film, presumably hoping the actions of his destructive characters would say it all, but he does preach.

Stone obviously sends up tabloid icon Geraldo Rivera with his Wayne Gale character, yet humanizes him to the point where the character’s ability to serve as a vehicle to represent what is wrong with tabloid culture is lost. The viewer begins to empathize with Gale (a strong performance by actor Robert Downey Jr.), when he should rightfully be despised by film’s end if Stone had stayed true to his message.

Stone deserves credit for trying. After all, there are very few filmmakers who even attempt to say anything in their films, let alone take on controversial and difficult issues. But Stone perhaps needs to contemplate his own hubris, for something has gone terribly wrong in his attempt to fashion a clarion call that the violence and glorification of violence has reached critical mass and something must be done.

What was meant to be a clear message that violence is not cool, is not good and only brings ruin was lost in a sea of MTV-style quick-cuts, projected words, heavy-metal demonic imagery and an overall tone that only compounds the problem. A faster, freakier ride than David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” (which “Killers” closely resembles), the film is too entertaining, too steeped in cliches to have the desired impact in its message . “Menace II Society” was far more effective in conveying the sense of anomie and fear at work in creating heartless killers. “Killers” has no such subtext to resonate or illuminate.

Stone seems too self-important and too self-assured to consider that his singular vision could be wrong. While I find it admirable that there is a filmmaker in America like Stone, who will fight to put what he believes on the screen, it is my hope that he will consider more carefully what impact his future films may have before releasing another one like this.