There is something to be said of movies that permeate with the self-gratifying conceit of a director misplaced in his own arrogance. Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” is a thoroughly unpleasant experience that masquerades under the ruse of cutting edge satire, and does so with the delusion that its elaborate ironies are compelling enough to neutralize the cynicism of the conviction. To say that it left me feeling dejected understates the obvious; it plays on psychological impulses with no substantial merit, other than maybe an underlying desire to investigate the criminal mind and make sense of it. Is there potential in that? In an era saturated by the notion of murder and mayhem being passages to fame, you would think so. But we charge motion pictures with delivering such messages through pragmatic intentions, or at least halfway plausible mockery. Here is a movie that assumes the path to enlightenment lies in pitching curve balls and then mercilessly beating us over the head with a sledgehammer for not catching them.
