Badlands (1973)

Please click the link to read my review of True Romance, which was heavily influenced by this film. 

Synopsis: It’s a classic small town 1950s American love story in the tradition of  Grease or Footloose… good-looking young guy from the wrong side of the tracks falls for good girl, her old-fashioned father disapproves, so he wins her love by…icing the son-of-a-bitch and going on a cross-country killing spree?!?! WTF?!?! 

Blurb From the VHS Jacket: “In 1959, Kit (Martin Sheen), who has killed several people, and his new girlfriend Holly (Sissy Spacek), who watched him do it, are adrift in a double fantasy of crime and punishment across South Dakota and Montana.” 

What Did I Learn?: 1) Salt grass tastes a lot like cabbage. 2) Everybody loves trout! 3) Listen to your parents and teachers. They got a line on most things, so don't treat em like enemies. There's always an outside chance you can learn something. Try to keep an open mind. Try to understand the viewpoints of others. Consider the minority opinion. But try to get along with the majority of opinion once it's accepted. 

You Might Like This Movie If: You've committed a serious crime, and you're looking to escape to Montana('s). 

Really?: 1) This film is based upon the real-life murder spree committed by Charles Starkweather sea Caril Ann Fugate, so I’m a little reluctant to criticize its credibility. Still, I was shocked when Kit murders Holly’s dad, and she barely reacts; later, he whacks his buddy Cato (who seems content to lay in bed and slowly bleed to death as he tells Holly all about his pet spider), as well as a nice young couple, and Holly doesn’t seem to care. None of these people seem terribly real. 2) Gee…. Kit and Holly look awfully clean and tidy, even though they spend the bulk of this movie living in cars and tree houses without too many changes of clothing, don’t they? 

Rating: I have to give Badlands a very mixed review; the film features some beautiful cinematography of the American West, both Sheen and Spacek deliver incredibly well-acted performances, and I quite enjoyed its strange musical score of selections from Carl Orff’s Musica Poetica. In some ways, Badlands is an impressive picture, but Writer/Director Terrence Malick really drops the ball by never revealing Holly or Kit’s motivations, or developing their characters (see: "Really?") Were either of them physically or sexually abused? Why is Holly’s dad so ridiculously overprotective of her? Did Kit simply snap when he shot Holly’s father, or was he always a violent sociopath? Who are these people? By the end, I possessed no better understanding of either Kit and Holly than I did at the beginning, and I certainly didn’t feel any need to care about them. 6/10 stars. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069762/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3