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Features: DVD, Director's Cut, Uncut
Editor's Note
Oliver Stone's over-the-top satire on America's worshipful fascination with tabloid criminals stars Woody Harrelson as Mickey Knox and Juliette Lewis as girlfriend-wife Mallory Wilson. Commencing with the dual murder of Mallory's sexually abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and grossly negligent mother (Edie McClurg), the anomic couple take off on a three-week killing spree across the country, telling everyone who they are so that they get the credit for their crimes. The media are immediately enthralled with the couple, especially Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.), the bloodthirsty host of a tabloid TV show who follows their every move. By the time they're finally arrested, they've become such huge media stars that the cops treat them more like celebrities than criminals. Even the maniacal limelight-hogging warden of the Batongaville State Prison, Dwight McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones), is in awe. Stone pulls out all the stops in the prison riot, as the unwitting Gale becomes an unwilling participant in his own broadcast of the event. Again the director switches from film to video, from color to black and white, from sitcom parody to newsreel parody, and from one film stock to another, hoping to jar the audience out of its complacency with visual hyperbole.
Plot Summary
Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis star as Mickey Knox and Mallory Wilson, two young, attractive mass murderers in love in Oliver Stone's wild-eyed satire on the American fascination with criminals. After killing Mallory's loathsome parents, the pair perform a ritual "marriage" and take off on a "honeymoon" killing spree that wipes out 52 people. Bloodthirsty tabloid reporter Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.) reports their every move to an adoring public while warden Dwight McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones) is only too eager to welcome such celebrities to his prison.
| Features | Region [unknown] | | Additional Release Material:
| Alternate Ending with introduction by Oliver Stone | | Introduction: by Oliver Stone | | Commentary by Director Oliver Stone | | Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by Oliver Stone | | Director?s Cut Trailer | | InterviewsCharlie Rose Oliver Stone on the making of this violent film, from the HD DVD release, SD) | | Featurette:
| 1. Chaos Rising The Storm Around Natural Born Killers | | 2. The Desert | | 3. Steven Wright | | 4. The Courtroom | | 5. The Hun Brothers | | 6. The Drive-In | | 7. Denis Leary | | 8. NBK Evolution: How Would It All Go Down Now? | | Text/Photo Galleries:
| Interview - Charlie Rose |
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| Entertainment Reviews
 | Natural Born Killers - The Director's Cut - DVD Review By: El Bicho - Blogcritics.org Reviews Published on: 11/1/2009 11:51 PM | | In celebration of its 15th Anniversary and because the distribution of the director’s cut reverted back to Warner Brothers, a new release of Natural Born Killers is now available. Based on a story from Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone tells the tale of serial killers Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) as a way to comment on problems with 1990s American society, such as violence, the justice system and the media. The tone is set immediately as the couple is introduced in a diner that quickly explodes into an orgy of violence, so over the top it is cartoonish, as is the frenetic way the scene is shot, constantly shifting perspectives and formats. It should be immediately obvious with its black humor that Natural Born Killers is a satire....read the full review |
| Natural Born Killers - DVD Review By: Eric Meyerson - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 10/2/2009 8:08 PM | |
Violence got the star treatment in the early ‘90s. With much of America feeling powerless to stem the crime and gang culture that seemed to be on the rise, we began to react to the ocean of carnage that dominated popular culture. Congress held hearings about violence on television, the finishing moves in Mortal Kombat, and Body Count’s otherwise obscure gangsta-metal single “Cop Killer.” For a while, blaming the pervasiveness of fake violence for real-world murder and assaults came to be as fashionable as flannel shirts and ripped jeans. And yet, America kept consuming it. Snoop Dogg sold millions of CDs, video games amped up the gore, and children could quote the grisly details of the O.J....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
|  | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 10/13/2009 |
| Running Time: 205 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1994 | | Catalog ID: 1000088914 | | UPC: 00883929056729 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: B&W and Color |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...The movie is a technical marvel, stunningly photographed..." 09/08/1994 p.83-7Entertainment Weekly
Ranked #1 in Entertainment Weekly's "10 Favorite Films of the '90s" -- "...Fevered genius....[A] hypnotic, revolutionary head trip..." 04/01/2000 p.159 New York Times
"...Stone's vision is impassioned, alarming, visually inventive, characteristically overpowering..." 08/26/1994 p.C1 Film Comment
"...[A] brilliantly outrageous film..." 11/01/1994 p.80-1 Sight and Sound
"...[Harrelson and Lewis are] superb at exaggerating the archetypes of cool psychopathology..." 03/01/1995 p.44-5 Chicago Sun-Times
"...NATURAL BORN KILLERS is like a slap in the face, waking us up to what's happening..." 08/26/1994 p.51 |
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