Actor(s): Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri, Alan Vint
Director(s): Terrence Malick
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
Language(s): English, French
EAN: 9780790739243
ISBN: 0790739240
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Description
Still one of American cinema's most powerful, daring filmmaking debuts, Terrence Malick's Badlands is a quirky, visionary psychological and social enigma masquerading as a simple lovers-on-the-lam 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 naŻve 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 analyzes, 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 and frustrated 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
Kit and Holly are adrift in a double fantasy of crime and murder as they travel through Montana and South Dakota.
I usually dislike films that tell terrible stories in a beautiful way, as if to glamorize the terror. But this one grabbed me. The cinematography is startlingly beautiful--there were scenes that almost made me gasp---especially the one of Sheen's head against the very blue sky at the moment he realizes he's going to be caught.
Beside the visual splendor, the acting is first rate. I don't what Martin Sheen has....he's not that good looking, he's sort of short and not really hunky....But he has some quality that really impresses me. I recently saw Apocolypse Now for the first time and he did the same thing. At first I was put off by his "more James Dean than James Dean" style---especially his body movements in the beginning. But then the urgency of his situation apparently scared him out of his need for style and he becamse an intensely interesting character.
When I was watching the film, I didn't know that it was based on real people. (There is a statement at the tne end disclaiming this.) I'm glad I didn't because I totally accepted the characters that were presented on the film. Some reviewers complain that the film tried to give the characters, especially the man, more depth than he could have had, by recording half-baked philosophies. I hate to admit that I have met people something like this. They are scary because they really believe that they are deep thinkers and that their (sick) view of things justifies their actions. I imagine that jails and mental hospitals are full of them.
The girl is problemmatic, too, in her apparent lack of affect. But, again, this is a 15 year old only child, who hasn't had a mother, whose father is no prize and this is 1959 in South Dakota where tv probably hasn't even hit yet. I found her dilemma and her flat, almost numb narration very believable.
I liked this film better than Days of Heaven, probably due to the casting. (although Sam Shepard was beautiful in the latter) It felt more complete and whole and resolved, unlike many other films that have shown horrific events that just leave you sitting there, sick. (eg. No Country for Old Men)
This is probably not a film for everyone but I give it a strong recommendation.
"Overrated"
Written By: C. Rocklein
Martin Sheen puts in another performance more menacing yet slightly the same ('James Dean') as California Kid. It's not an awful movie, but neither is it great, and certainly not riveting. It's a kind of a by-the-numbers Bonnie and Clyde tale, though the movie (Bonnie and Clyde) with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway blows this one out of the water. See that first if you haven't.
"starkweather"
Written By: Steven P. Grate
this was a pretty lame attempt at depicting charles starkweather without actually saying that it was, but I knew.
"3.5 stars out of 4"
Written By: One-Line Film Reviews
The Bottom Line:
Some of the scenes in this Terrence Malick vision of the Starkweather homicides don't seem to quite fit (particularly the Swiss Family Robinson style scenes in the woods) but by and large this is a triumph of a film with engaging performances by the two young leads, inspired use of location, and a compelling ending; heck, it even has time for a satisfying car chase.
"Emotional Vacuum"
Written By: Randy Keehn
"Badlands" was released when I was 21 and I'm not sure why I never saw it until last night. I recall a fair amount of controversy at the time of its' release in that it supposedly glorified senseless murder. It does but so did "Bonnie and Clyde" I think movie critics were more in awe of Faye Dunnaway, Warren Beatty, and the Roaring 20's gangster genre in their reaction to "Bonnie and Clyde". Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen were relative newcomers at the time and Terrence Malick making his directorial debut. I recall a wide range of emotions in "Bonnie and Clyde" including humor (thanks in large part to Michael J. Pollard' one hit wonder preformance). I did not see anything funny in "Badlands". What surprised me was the total lack of meaningful emotion on the part of the two main characters. We are led to like these two (I Think) yet we have trouble grasping their motivation. The initial murder is enough to set the stage. How that could have happened with so little meaningful reflection afterwards made me take a few steps back in my own emotional involvement.
The journey these two take was certainly not what I had expected. The real-life characters (despite the standard disclaimer in the final credits) that these two were portraying were Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. The man(and woman)hunt for them was intensive and the image we had was that of desperate persons running out of control. "Badlands" brings out the fear and uncertainty of the Central US but shows us a relaxed "What do you wanna do now?" couple who seem like their next stop would be an ice cream parlor. I guess that this is part of the success of "Badlands"; two people who can't see anything in the world except themselves and others who are out to hurt them. Their innocence in how they deal with one another starkly (or starkweatherly) contrasts with how unemotionally they perceive everyone else. For some that will be a comment on violence in the US, our inability to relate to one another in our society, or something of that sort. Others will likely want to condemn these two to a lifetime in juvenile detention. The final part of the film is either meant to endear us even more to the couple or to try and tell us that even evil people have their good days. My own impression is probably still under construction but the blue prints tell me that this is a movie that is very well made and certainly worth watching so long as we appreciate the style rather than the substance.
"Stunning"
"Overrated"
"starkweather"
"3.5 stars out of 4"
