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In a perverse twist on the sit-com show format, Mallory is the cowed daughter of her drunken, sexual molester father (Rodney Dangerfield). Groping and beating her, the canned laughter of the studio audience reacts only to the "happy" family's one-liners. Into this sickness comes Mickey, himself the victim of child abuse, and with a single look this fateful couple are welded together for eternity. Although separated by jail, their love burns more brightly than ever. With a fortuitous escape Mickey comes looking for Mallory and, in the process, her parents are dispatched in grisly fashion. Now that the pair are killers they take to the road (in true Bonnie and Clyde fashion), terrorising all who lay in their path. An improvised marriage ceremony (atop an impossibly high bridge) merely compresses their reality bubble, admitting neither entrance nor humanity to outsiders. The body count rises ever higher and their fame spreads, fuelled by the lone survivor they always leave and the media hype of "American Maniacs".
Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr), the sleazy host of this tabloid exploitation show, thrives on fervour of their unchecked killing spree. Local cops seem powerless to prevent their march along their desert frontier, even to the extent that they can tail them without quite realising who they are. The only man who seems to have a chance of stopping them is part-psycho cop Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore), another character with a shattered childhood. On the verge of retiring from this particular line of work, Mickey and Mallory are cornered in a small town drugstore by Scagnetti. Under the glare of TV cameras he manages to subdue Mickey, principally by threatening to cut Mallory to ribbons. It seems as though they'll spend the rest of their lives apart, once again separated by prison.
However, even under lock and key they're a menace. After dispatching several inmates and guards they're to be sent to a mental hospital, for "special" treatment. Seizing his chance, Wayne Gale arranges a live interview with Mickey straight from the heart of the penitentiary. The publicity-loving Warden (Tommy Lee Jones) jumps at the chance of fame, even though he detests Mickey and Mallory with every iota of his hyped-up body. The mood in the prison is ugly and there's an apocalyptic tension in the air, all due to Mickey and Mallory. This jail's a powder-keg and everyone's got a light.
A movie which has polarised opinion like few other films of recent years, Natural Born Killers both lives up to expectations and fails to meet the hype. Violence is ever present (in almost every major character), yet far more is implied than is ever shown explicitly. More disturbing still is the impression that such mass murder is indigenous within our society (at least within the States), fuelled by a combination of broken homes and media worship. The acting is fine, in an over-the-top fashion, although it's difficult to rate this aspect because NBK has no continuous storyline. Instead we're showered with fragments of the tale, all presented via an explosion of different forms.
Visual and aural overload is compulsory as the film switches between colour and black & white, film and video images, 35mm and Super-8, rear and front projection (probably side too!), cartoons, animation, vox-pop interviews and much more. It's an incredible buzz to be tossed in this storm of technique, dizzily twisting with the story and never being given the chance to become bored. The soundtrack, which is integral to the action, is uniformly excellent and worth listening to in its own right. It's true that this is a sick and venal film, which rains down with sledgehammer blows, but it's also viscerally enjoyable. It won't appeal to all tastes, but if you like it you'll love it.
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