I saw this movie twice after it was released on VHS. I didn’t get the movie. I liked parts of it, but it just didn’t fully click for me. I was so used to cliche slasher flicks that I didn’t understand this so well. The same thing happened to me with Pulp Fiction. I kept watching them and renting them until they clicked through. No regerts!!! Laugh damn you! I own this on DVD as the normal director’s cut, then on DVD as part of the Oliver Stone collection, and then on beautiful blu ray.
Start film
Mickey (Woody) is in a diner, and he’s talking to the waitress about some key lime pie. That alone should have interested at least one of you. Mickey is with Mallory (Juliette Lewis) and this is just filmed differently. This already has a different vibe to it. The angles, the music, it’s unique for its time. In case you didn’t know, Tarantino did write the screenplay for this. Some good old boys come into the bar, and they are checking out Mallory dancing. One of the guys is dancing with her, the other guy talks to Mickey and refers to her as pussy. Haha. Oh, this is great. She starts whooping the flirting guy’s ass, like beats his ass. Now the joint is getting wrecked, nobody is intervening. Well, finally his buddy gets up, so Mickey slices him up real proper. The chef gets a bullet in the bubble goose, somebody outside gets a knife to the face, and Mallory finishes her man off. M & M embrace. We have a waitress and some fat hoss. They do an eenie meenie miney moe to determine who is the lone survivor to tell their story. The waitress gets got. Mallory is so fucking ridiculously over the top, it can be off putting, but I find it adorable. Lots of different lighting, and some black and white, and fuck, this is a tough film to really describe.
The whole opening credit sequence is pretty damn unique. I have always wondered how Tarantino would have done this film. I am fairly sure he is not a fan of this.
After the credits, we get Mallory dancing on top of the car’s hood while Sweet Jane by Cowboy Junkies play. It’s a great song. Always great to randomly have Juliette Lewis taking a piss. Time to flashback to when Mallory met Mickey. It is like in the stylings of a 70’s sitcom. Rodney Dangerfield is her dad. There’s a laugh track with all the swearing, and dad threatening to beat her and her mom’s ass. Dad also wants to fuck daddy’s little girl. Hahaha, this is great and ridiculous. Rodney Dangerfield was perfect for this role. There’s a guest at the door, and it’s the local butcher, played by Mickey. That’s when M & M meet up and he calls her beautiful. Mickey wants her to take a ride with him. Mom is ragging on dad about his eating habits. M & M take off.
We go forward in time, Mallory is visiting Mickey in jail, so she gives him an old fashioned handy J, and tells him that her daddy plans on moving the family. Mickey believes in fate, and his fate with Mallory. He declares that he will find her, no matter where she goes. While outside at the prison, doing some work with horses, a tornado comes and Mickey steals one of the guard’s horses. He got away, thanks to a snake biting the other guard’s horse. The snake is important.
At Mallory’s house, Dad is watching WWF, and he wants some jobber to beat Tatanka, which obviously pumped me up. Mickey shows up and Dad wants a fight. The struggle is real, as they say, but Mallory joins in and they double team dad. She just insults him while they drown him in the aquarium. Now it’s time to kill mom. They tie her down in bed and set her on fire because she never stopped Dad from raping and beating her and the family. Mallory tells her younger bro, Kevin, that he is free. And so it begins. Fate man, fate.
Mickey proposes to Mallor while on a bridge. He wants to get married right there. She has a veil of sorts. He cuts both of their palms, and squeeze some blood out so they can live together in the oceans. See the tie to Titanic now? Thought so. It was kind of a thing of beauty. They perform their own marriage, and it’s awesome. They just did their thing, and you gotta respect it.
Here’s fucking Robert Downey Jr as Wayne gale, and he has this awfully cheesy voice, but it works. He’s one of those TV show hosts of a crime show. He’s like an investigative reporter. He is talking about M & M. Hell, they even have a reenactment. Shotgun to a sheriff. Fucking Otis from The Walking Dead is in this, in the scene with the horses. Fucking A. Wayne Gale just said Zombieland….that’s kinda neat. Wayne interviews people and come to find out, M & M are like a cooler version or the Manson family, like they are big time celebrities. They are on the cover of all the big magazines and they just had a cool factor I guess.
Mallory is worried about Mickey still finding her sexy, insecure women. Rest assured, he’s gonna rail her. Mallory finally takes off her wig, now she looks way more natural. This scene in the hotel, it’s sooo odd. She is trying to be romantic, and he is just distracted by the TV and movies, which included Scarface. He got pissed off as soon as he noticed that her wedding ring was off. She is never to take that ring off, it symbolizes all of their great things. They start to fuck as Mickey is starting at this blond chick that they abducted. Mickey was hoping that she would be joining in, and welllll, Mallory is on a mission of being super pissed and vengeful. Always a good thing because jaded bitches do really dumb things. Well, Mickey is gonna have some violent fun with Blondie, and Mallory is out driving, having her own weird episode so to speak. She ends up at a gas station, and the gas attendant is filling it up, and she goes and checks out some car. She keeps seeing Mickey despite him not being there. Well, she is going to let this dude touch her, she wants to feel loved and feel beautiful. He mounts her on the hood and she is having flashbacks to her dad, and it is just a fucking terrible psychological mindfuck. She gets mad at his skills at going down and she shoots him.
Tom Sizemore is Jack Skagnetti, which if you are familiar with Tarantino, that name should send familiar from Reservoir Dogs. Skagnetti found a hair at the scene of the crime. Haha, they are driving and she is navigating, and he calls her a stupid bitch, just like her dad. She gets all kinds of pissy as they run out of gas. They start walking and find an Indian’s place, or Native American if that’s your thing. The Indian invites him in, and there’s a rattlesnake there. Old Indian doesn’t get a good vibe from M & M. There’s a younger Indian male too, his grandson. The boy sense something wrong as well, but grandpa says that some people don’t want help. The old man tells a story about a snake, and this scene is trippy as well. Lots of creepy visuals. Mickey is dreaming about his youth. Mickey, in the midst of his dream, he accidentally shoots the Old Man. Old Man says that 20 years ago, he had seen the demon, and he had been waiting for Mickey. Mallory is pissed at Mickey saying how bad he was. Mallory is trying to cover him up at least, and Mickey is trying to start the truck. Mickey is saying that it was an accident, and she is super-fly pissed. Mallory is still walking and she won’t stop despite Mickey telling her to stop. They are walking through a fucking mess of rattlesnakes. Both got bit. This gets even more trippy, the drive to the drug store.
Skagnetti is with some whore named Pinkie, but she is a cute tiny thing. He has her dance for him topless, and she has smaller tits, but she is very pretty. Skagnetti now is strangling her because that’s his thing. Shame to kill a pretty little thing like that. Skagnetti is hellbent on finding M & M.
M & M are in the supermarket and she can’t walk, Mickey goes to get some anti snake venom meds, but they are sold out. The pharmacist, this big Hawaiian looking dude, is watching TV and it’s a show about M & M. He is scared shitless. Mickey is asking for the meds, and this big dude is acting so scared. Mickey now realizes that the guy pushed the alarm button for the cops. Mallory goes to try to leave while Mickey is hellbent on killing Big Boy. Big Boy thinks that he won’t get shot as M & M always leave one clerk alive to tell the story, but as he points out, there’s gotta be a crime for there to be a story.
The cops show up and they are wrestling with Mallory. Mickey is shooting down some cops. This is a hell of a scene. Skagnetti grabs Mallory, he threatens to cut Mallory’s tits off if Mickey doesn’t give himself up. Skagnetti does cut her. I love the Asian reporter. She is delightful. Mickey appears to be giving up, but he has one last trick up his sleeve with a knife, and then he gets tasered. The cops beat the fuck out of him. Mallory is singing These Boots Are Gonna Walk All Over You. Haha. I know that I am supposed to be on the officer’s side, but fuck man, I wanted M & M to somehow kill them all. Does that make me a bad person? Anyway, M & M are taken away.
One year later, and Skagnetti comes to visit the prison. He meets the warden, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy Lee looks awesome in this. His name is Dwight. Dwight gives Skagnetti the tour. They go to the cafeteria, and a black guy acts a fool, and Dwight just fucking handles business by fucking his nose up with like, tongs. Also, The Day the Niggaz Took Over is playing. It’s a great 90’s gangsta rap type song. Love me some Dr. Dre. Dwight shows him Mallory’s cell, she is singing Born Bad, then rams her head into the door and knocks herself out.
Meanwhile, Wayne Gale is talking to Mickey in hopes of striking a deal with him to do a televised interview. Downey is awesome here. Hmmm, Dwight just referred to Mickey and Mallory as M & M. I honestly forgot about that. Mickey agrees to the interview the day before he is to be shipped off.
Mickey writes his letter to Mallory, telling her how he killed his yoga partner, and she is in her cell dancing to Sweet Jame again. Mickey misses her terribly. Nice, Steven Wright as a doctor. He has such a great voice. Wayne wants the interview to air right after the super bowl. Mickey has shaved his head for this interview. I was so happy at the time. This was like the same year that I lost my hair due to alopecia, and it was so refreshing to see a dude look like a bald badass. Bald men need people to look up to just the same as you hair fucks. Ugh, fuck the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. Fuck the Cowboys in general.
It’s interview time. Mickey talks about how he was born into violence. I love how Mickey says that a lot of people deserve to die, and I buy that in a way. Hello random pair of tits. 3 weeks, 52 people were killed. Pretty impressive, but he expresses regret over the Old Man. Mickey says how the Old Man saw the demon in Mickey. Mickey gets talking all philosophical about shadows, and demons and love. He says that Mallory was his salvation, as she was teaching him about love. Hey, a Polar Bear Coke commercial. Classic!
Skagnetti goes to Mallory’s cell, and he tells the 2 guards to not worry about him needing protection. He’s a creepy bastard, he’s funny. Mallory brings the creepy right back. Mickey tells Wayne that he has evolved while Wayne and the media is nothing more than apes if that. He gets talking about his calling in life, and Wayne asks what that is, and Mickey says “Shit man, I’m a natural born killer.” They go to commercial, and then a riot breaks out in prison. Dwight needs to stop the interview and figure out the situation of the riot. Shit is scary. The guards are just getting overrun. Mickey tells the crew a funny little joke. He uses the joke as a way to distract the guards and steal a shotgun and shoot most of them up, except the weakest looking one. He wants Wayne to come with him. Mickey wants this filmed. Time to go to Mallory’s cell. Wayne is fighting the asshole prisoners off of his cameraman. Wayne just lets loose.
Mallory is talking about sex to Skagnetti, just turning him on. He wants her to kiss him and squeeze his niples. Well, needless to say, she beats the fuck out of him. The guards gets it, and she puts up a fight, but she gets maced by Skagnetti eventually. Poor girl. The news cuts to this, and Mickey saves Mallory from the assault. Well, it’s a Mexican standoff between Skagnetti and Mickey. Mickey sees Mallory get up, so he gives up and Mallory stabs Skagnetti’s bitch ass. M & M are making out and we get Sweet Jane again. Haha, Mickey goes to shoot Skagnetti, but he was out of bullets, but Mallory kills him with one of the guards pistols.
Dwight is in the surveillance room and he is seeing just how fucked him and his guards are. There’s a fire, guards are being tortured, assaulted and killed, everywhere. It is pure fucking chaos. It is one of the craziest scenes I have ever seen on film, and it still holds up well. One guard reveals to Dwight that M & M are loose and on live TV. Needless to say, Dwight is having a bad day. Most of Mickey’s crew is getting shot up. This is one of the most violent movies that I have ever seen. A prisoner assists M & M and Wayne with an escape. His name is Owen. Wayne is now shooting up guards, I am loving it. He is just nutso. Owen is like the most peaceful, calm dude.
Dwight has the exit blocked from M & M. They use Wayne as a hostage. Mallory shot Wayne’s hand to show that they were serious. Mickey lets Mallory know that he loves her. She has been shot in the side. Wayne is on his cell and says that he ain’t coming home. He tells his wife that she can have everything. Haha. Everybody is pretty fucking wounded. Mallory wants to go out in a hail of bullets. We now have small guard, Wayne, Owen, and M & M. That is how they are gonna get out. They walk out the main gate and seal in the remaining guards and Dwight. They are going to get overrun very soon. Dwight is captured by the inmates. He is gonna have a bad time, as his head is on a pole.
They made an escape in the news van, and small guard is dead. I don’t know what happened to Owen. I missed it. M & M said that the riot was not their doing, but it was fate. At the end, they tell Wayne that they are going to blow his brains out on camera. Wayne begs, but Mickey explains exactly why they have to kill him, they don’t want to be hypocrites. Wayne tries and tries to beg, but gives up to the inevitability of his situation acknowledging that he is scum. I still loved Wayne, but damn, that was a hell of a way to go. We end with a little media montage of the bigger news stories from back then, OJ, Waco, etc. And then we see Mickey driving an RV with kids, so him and Mallory got to live out their dream…..I think.
End film.
Here’s the part for the TLDR’s of this obnoxious society.
What did we learn from this film?
We learned that people that come from shitty broken homes are going to be influenced by the shitty environment that they are surrounded by. Unfortunately, this can often create what the person becomes when they grow up. To fight so hard to not be that, they go in an opposite extreme that is equally worse. Other times, you repeat the same mistakes of those before you. That still holds true today. Unfortunately, there are girls out there very, very similar to Mallory, and it is absolutely heartbreaking. They never have a healthy relationship in their life due to their upbringing and are always looking for something that they never received as a child. On the guy’s side, yeah, I can absolutely see why guys grow up to be assholes. That’s sometimes the only way of life that you know. We also learned that the media are manipulative parasites by and large who aren’t interested in helping or educating the public. They only care about how much money can be made, and unfortunately, one can understand that perspective. Still, it’s like an unspoken rule that you have a duty, in theory, to report news, not sensationalize it. Like doctors are there to treat people, not push their own agendas, or teachers are there to educate future generations.
Why did I follow Titanic up with this?
Now granted, there wasn’t necessarily a class difference as far as wealth goes, at least wealth wasn’t really brought up. As a matter of fact, both came from similar shitty backgrounds, which may have repelled them, but fate intervened, and brought them together, and damnit, it was a thing of beauty. They were on a mission to rid the world of demons, like Bill Paxton is Frailty. Some people like Skagnetti and Dwight were trying to keep M & M separate, just like Cal and Mom in Titanic, they also had a supporter in Wayne or Molly in Rose and Jack’s situation. I have to imagine these 2 films have the 2 highest death counts in all of the movies that I plan on reviewing. At the end of the day, it’s about love, and almost instant love, and fate. Sometimes, you just meet that special somebody, and you just have that feeling that they are something special. In your mind, you are 5 steps ahead of where you normally are because things just click. Sometimes, you meet your soul mate. I imagine it must be a wonderful thing to meet your one true soulmate and have that feeling reciprocated, forever. In both cases, at the end of the day, they fought to stay together until the bitter end. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
Rating: 7.8 This movie works on so many levels for me. Once again, we have an amazing cast, and the main players nail it. Woody was spectacular in this, as was Juliette. I have no doubt that Tarantino’s version of this film would be amazing, and probably better suited for my tastes, BUT I can’t take anything away from Oliver Stone who took a real artistic shot at this story, and it paid off if you come in with an open mind.
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- Warner Bros. (presents)
- Regency Enterprises (in association with)
- Alcor Films (in association with)
- Ixtlan
- New Regency Pictures
- J D Productions (in association with)
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