Natural Born Killers

Natural Born Killers
By Peter John Gardner

"It's just murder. All God's creatures do it. You look in the forests and you see species killing other species, our species killing all species including the forests, and we just call it industry, not murder." - Mickey Knox

In 1991, a young writer was having trouble finding funding for the production of one of his scripts entitled Natural Born Killers. Producing the film would be too expensive for the up-and-comer, so he sold the script for $10,000 and used that money to fund his directorial debut. That debut became "Reservoir Dogs" and that writer was a young Quentin Tarantino.

Long story short, the producers that bought the script partnered with Oliver Stone and reworked the film from Tarantino's original vision. The film shifted its focus from the celebrity gossip reporter Wayne Gale to the killers themselves, Mickey and Mallory. Instead of the film's narrative being about the exploitation of violence in the media, the film also became a loose character study of the killers themselves.

Natural Born Killers was criticized upon its release for "glorifying violence", but the film doesn't do that. While it tries to figure out what make Mickey and Mallory tick, it never goes out of its way to portray them as sympathetic characters nor does it ever imply that what they're doing is "cool". Even by 90s standards, the film isn't really that violent to begin with. Sure, lots of people get shot, but it's not a movie padded with gore.

The film can be divided in half. The first half is the Mickey and Mallory Show. We follow Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in their roles as Mickey and Mallory Knox as they gush over each other and kill anyone that rubs them the wrong way. Inevitably, they get caught and the second half of the film chronicles their time in prison and subsequent escape. Also onboard is Tom Sizemore as a sleazy detective tracking the killers, Tommy Lee Jones as a batshit insane prison warden, and Robert Downey Jr. as a celebrity gossip reporter hoping that his post-Superbowl interview with Mickey Knox will be the defining moment in his journalistic career.

Basically, the film is an exploration of the media's obsession with violence, fresh off the very public trials of OJ Simpson and the Menendez Brothers. Are we making anti-heroes out of these people just by giving them coverage 24/7 in the news? It was a hot topic at the time, but 15 years later, it seems somewhat irrelevant. Since then, many people have stopped watching the news just because they are tired of hearing "bad news" or the most common excuse, "It depresses me". With the exception of the Beltway Sniper a few years back, killers don't really get top bill in the news anymore. But that's just cable tv. In 2009, news has other ways of getting around.

Think about it. Even though the press was locked out of Iran after their fraudulent election earlier this year, Iranians took to social networking sites to let the world know what was going on in their country. People were finding out about Iranians being beaten in the streets through Twitter while CNN was covering a "Jon & Kate Plus 8" story. Even if the media didn't give coverage to attention craving madmen, they'd still find a way to make their voices heard. Imagine a serial killer that leaves a trail of murdered bodies and then posts a confession on Youtube about it. Or after every murder, the killer lets his followers on Twitter know about it before the police.

One other thing that made me think while watching this movie. Rodney Dangerfield plays Mallory's physically and sexually abusive father in this movie. Now imagine having Rodney Dangerfield as your dad. Forget his character in the movie. It's basically Rodney with a few incest jokes thrown in. Imagine being raised by a guy that makes his living on the fact that his insecurities prevent him from feeling any respect from his peers, so he constantly complains about it. Imagine being a toddler and seeing Rodney's bug eyes staring at you in your crib. That's the stuff nightmares and killers are made of.