Amazon.co.uk Review
Still one of American cinema's most powerful, daring film-making debuts, Terrence Malick's
Badlands is a quirky, visionary psychological and social enigma masquerading as a simple lovers-on-the-run flick. Inspired by the 1958 murders in the cold, stark badlands of South Dakota by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, the film's plot, on the surface, is similar to that of other killing-couple films, like
Bonnie and Clyde and
Gun Crazy. Martin Sheen, in an understated, sophisticated performance, plays the strange James Dean-like social outcast who falls in love with the naïve Sissy Spacek--and then kills her father when he comes between them. The two flee like animals to the wilderness, until the police arrive and the killing spree begins.
What sets the film apart from others of its genre is Malick's complicated approach. Gorgeous, impenetrable images contrast sharply with Spacek's nostalgically artless narration, serving as ironic counterpoints, blurring concrete meaning and stressing that nothing this horrific is simple. Malick observes, rather than analyses, the couple in a manner as detached and apathetic as the couple's shocking actions. No judgment or definitive motivations are offered, though Malick's empathy often leans toward his senseless protagonists, rather than the star-struck society that makes killers famous. Compared with the interchangeable uniform cops who hunt them and the film's other nameless characters stuck in suburban banality, the couple are presented like tarnished, warped andfrustrated results of squelched individuality.
Badlands, on one level, views America's suffocating homogeneity and, conversely, its continued obsession with celebrities (individuals considered different but adored) as hypocritical. Ambiguous and bold, the movie hints that society may be as guilty as the killers. --Dave McCoy
Amazon.co.uk Review
Terrence Malick's
Badlands has become a cornerstone in American cinema. Although not a success at the box office at the time of its release in 1973, its influence can be seen years later in the Tarantino-penned
Natural Born Killers and
True Romance among others, and it remains arguably one of the finest debuts by a director in Hollywood history. Astonishingly, Malick has only made two movies since:
Days of Heaven (1979) and
The Thin Red Line (1998).
Badlands also brought Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek to the notice of Hollywood for the first time. Shot on a low budget, the film (based on Charles Starkweather and Caril-Ann Fugate's 1958 killing spree) portrays a loved-up couple on the run from the law who embark on a series of killings motivated by their need to survive.
The film has become a classic, partly due to Tak Fujimoto's cinematography and partly due to the detached attitude the couple adopt towards murder. Like Tarantino's later anti-heroes and heroines, Kit and Holly are killers without conscience. Holly's naïve teenage mentality makes her passive attitude seem even more shocking, and her only comment that leads us to believe she has any grasp of the situation is when she mentions that Kit may be a little crazy. Yet there is also an innocent, "young love" side to the couple's actions which the audience cannot fail to feel pity for, greatly helped by the pairing of Sheen and Spacek as well as Malick's gift for drawing the finest and most sensitive performances from his actors.
On the DVD: Badlands has been cleaned up nicely with a 1.85:1 widescreen print and 5.1 surround sound. Although seemingly short of extras the one included on the disc is a real gem: "Absence of Malick" offers insight into this notoriously publicity-shy director from the cast and crew and the reason why he ended up acting in his own movie. --Nikki Disney
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