Senator_Corleone

Few films ever made have been as controversial as 1994's "Natural Born Killer." Some critics felt it was an atrocity-an assault on good taste, movie-making craft, and humanity in general. Others felt that it was a masterpiece, a cinematic statement that went where no movie had gone before. I believe, personally, that the film is a must-see. Not because I think it is one of the best movies ever made (there are flaws, like an over-abundance of themes that muddy the film's message), not because I think it's one of director Oliver Stone's best ("Platoon" and "JFK" are both superior films), but because I think that it represents a unique cinematic experience. You will never see any film that affects you in the same way that "Natural Born Killers" does. In that way it shares the same place in filmdom with such diverse titles as "Eraserhead," "Being John Malkovich," and "Plan 9 from Outer Space": there's just nothing out there like it. Its attitude towards its lurid, frightening, and oftentimes repulsive subject matter alone distinguishes it from many other movies. It has fun with death and violence in a way that makes you contemplate on the nature of what is being shown to you on screen. The fact that it simultaneously decries and glorifies violence would seem hypocritical if the movie seemed to be unaware of the conflict of interest inherent in it. However, Stone is all to cognizant of the problem, and is indicting himself as well as the glory-chasing media with the final product. The fact that the two serial killers are watching "Scarface," a movie Stone wrote, is as important for its commentary on the filmmaker as its film buff in-jokeness. Another aspect of this movie that received a lot of attention was its singular editing style. Characterized by multiple cuts, lighting patterns, filming techniques, and even some animated interludes, the movie acts as a technical geek show. It is a full-frontal assault on your eyes and ears. And I, for one, think Stone's jack-hammer style fits his subject perfectly. A wild, disorienting plot deserves a wild, disorienting storytelling style. You will also be hard-pressed to find realistic characters in this movie. Stone has filled "NBK" with a gallery of grotesque monsters, from Tommy Lee Jones' screeching redneck-from-hell prison warden, to Robert Downey Jr.'s parasitic Robin Leach-like talk show host, to Tom Sizemore's virulent psychopathic bad cop. All these characters add to the vision of the film, because an insane film with an insane filming style deserves insane characters. But, when it comes down to it, "Natural Born Killers" is an important modern film not just because of its style, tone, and characters, but because it causes discussion about America's modern obsession with serial killers and the media's infatuation with violence. Pop culture itself is on trial with this movie, and Oliver Stone delivers it a visceral knockout punch. Great soundtrack, too.

"Unforgiven" is one of the greatest films ever made. A fatalistic, dark, emotional masterpiece, it is the last true Western. It is no accident that no great Western films have been made since "Unforgiven" came out in 1992. The film effectively closes the book on any other statements that could be made in the genre. It is a fitting elegy to a type of film that brought cinema great achievements ("The Searchers", "Shane", "The Wild Bunch", and many more).

The film chronicles William Munny (Eastwood at his best), a retired gunslinger, who was once the "rootin' tootin' meanest son of a bitch who ever lived," deciding to pick up his guns one more time to kill a few cowboys who mutilated a prostitute. There is a bounty on their head, and Munny is a failing pig farmer trying to raise his two children, so the money looks might promising. Before he sets off, however, Munny picks up his old partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman). "How long's it been since you fired a gun, Will? Ten years?" Munny answers "Eleven." It is true that Munny is rusted over-he continually says that his wife Claudia "cured him of wrongdoing". However, he says this so much it sounds more like the affirmation of a man in denial than someone who has actually changed.

So Munny and Logan ride off (in several beautifully shot scenes) to meet the Scofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett), a young hotshot who claims to be a killer. But as the film progresses we learn there is more (or less) to the Scofield Kid than is apparent. As the three men ride toward Big Whiskey, Wyoming (the site of the whore-cutting), the town's sheriff, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman in one of his great performances), tries to keep order. A brutal, violent, and menacingly intelligent man, Little Bill is a formidable presence indeed. As these elements come together, the film's tension is racketed up to almost unbearable heights. The film's climax is one of the most truthful, brutal, and sobering finales in cinema history. We learn that no one can escape their past, and no man who was once a killer will ever be anything else. As you watch the final scenes, it comes as a sudden shock to you that the people you thought were heroes and villains were nothing of the sort. In a film like "Unforgiven", there are no good guys and bad guys, only a gray existence between the two. That is the message of "Unforgiven": that when it comes to violence, there are no good guys and bad guys, only men who do as much damage to themselves as to others by killing.

That is the film's message, but there are other things in "Unforgiven" that make it unforgettable. The acting is top-notch, including Richard Harris as an ill-fated outsider looking for the bounty, Saul Rubinek as his leach-like biographer, and Frances Fisher as Strawberry Alice, the leader of the prostitutes and a singularly unforgiving individual. These characters interact against the backdrop of a quickly eroding culture. The Old West is in its final days in this film, and that sense of soon-to-be-loss carries over the entire movie. "Unforgiven" is a film about the end of something: the end of a lifstyle, the end of a culture, the end of lives. Because it so effectively and brilliantly takes place in this dying time, it acts as the final chapter to the Western genre, ending a celluloid odyssey on a pathos-filled guitar note.