Natural Born Killers MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 1/2 Content: -4

As Malory (Juliette Lewis) dances suggestively, Mickey (Woody Harrelson) polishes off a meal at a diner. With little provocation, Malory smashes a beer bottle over a rude fellow-dancer's head and punches and kicks him. Knives flash and bullets fly as Mickey and Malory happily kill the diner's staff and patrons. After 52 senseless, violent killings, many of them accompanied by Malory and Mickey's jovial squeals, the two are finally apprehended by an equally sick cop. A year later, a tabloid-TV journalist (a la Geraldo) interviews jailbird Mickey on live TV. A bloody riot ensues and Malory and Mickey escape in a hail of gunfire as the nation looks on. Innovative with its wild switches from black-and-white to color, odd camera angles, and visual kaleidoscope of images, this movie self-destructs with its relentless whirlpool of gore and foul language.

Director Oliver Stone apparently set out to preach that TV violence and abusive, negative parents are producing a generation of compassionless thugs. However, the film is as offensive and vulgar as the crimes he's criticizing, glamorizing every kind of nasty killing and sexual assault. Innocent victims are wantonly executed. Law officials and parents are portrayed as hopelessly ignorant brutes who are better off dead. The gunshots, stabbings and beatings are punctuated throughout with 220 obscenities, profanities and crudities. Perverse sex is thrown in almost as an afterthought. Faces of demons, dead bodies and violent and sexual acts continually flash on the screen. Nihilism, New Age and Eastern philosophies are promoted as Mickey practices yoga and proclaims himself god of his world. Disgusting and disturbing, NATURAL BORN KILLERS is, in the words of one of its characters, "Bad! Bad! Bad!" It is truly an abomination.

Preview Reviewer: Bob Liparulo
Distributor: Warner Brothers, 4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91522