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This might be the most psycho movie ever made. Not just because it's a movie about a couple who gleefully mass-murders people, but because of the relentless style. The movie is such a zany and noisy audiovisual presentation that it can be exhausting and nerve-wracking.
Presentation is a large part of what makes this film memorable; from start to finish, it is a rapid-fire onslaught of images upon images that collectively tells the story of murder and mayhem. The editing is often brilliant in the way it juxtaposes related images in an expressionistic manner. It can also be very weird, especially when animation, black-and-white photography, stock footage, overlays, and bizarre background effects are used in such short proximity. If you can stomach the craziness, the film does have plenty of memorable scenes, including a kick-butt opening sequence, and a finale filled with all-out rioting and bloodshed.
The story is pretty simple, but the characters take the front stage. You might think it's hard to relate to these brutal, twisted people, but their romance, rebellion, and carefree attitudes make them the most charismatic pair of criminals since Bonnie and Clyde. Thanks to the way the film is shown, and the way it dispenses pop-culture images all over the place, the film delivers an underlying theme of violence, and the way it's constantly exploited in the mass media to be delivered to the whole world as a product. It might be seen as pretentious and hypocritical that it's a violent movie preaching against violent movies. However, I don't see this as glorifying violence, since there's nothing glorious about it. It's a trashy and ugly affair, full of ugly characters and ugly acts. In the end, the film serves as a bold and shocking descent into the pathology of the minds of mass murderers, and perhaps also an exploration of the people who idolize them.
This film has some incredibly crazy photography; the camera tends to float around each scene, with a lot of skewed angles. Editing is very fast and relentless, with each scene intercut with a myriad of different images. Acting is intense; Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis inhabit their characters perfectly, while Robert Downey Jr and Tommy Lee Jones are extremely batty in their roles. Writing is good. Half of the sets, props, and costumes used are rather cheesy and fake-looking, but then the other half tends to look gritty and more real. Music is often pretty loud and obnoxious, but it matches up with the film well.
The style and violence of this film is incredibly dense and zany, but it is a heck of an experience that provides a stark expression of unbridled psychosis. If you can handle this kind of poignancy, then it's worth seeing at least once.
4/5 (Experience: Mixed | Content: Good | Film: Extreme)
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