10 Films That Make You The Bad Guy
8. Natural Born Killers
Natural Born Killers is a case study in examining audience complicity. The genre-defying send-up of Bonnie & Clyde mashes genres together and indulges in ultra-violence, all in the name of examining the audience's hunger for ultra-violence.
Oliver Stone's 1994 film used the backdrop of society's mass media obsession as way of challenging what audiences want, and why. It's no stretch to say that our obsession with media has only grown in the last twenty-six years, making the movie even more relevant today. It also manages to make any modern audience feel even more complicit in the horrors seen onscreen.
One section of the film, I Love Mallory, is shot and edited like a multi-camera TV show, featuring a truly disturbing cameo from the usually lovable Rodney Dangerfield. This serves to highlight how we've come to the point where even family friendly fare, such as sitcoms about dysfunctional families, can be laced with the potential for sudden violence.
Natural Born Killers doesn't exactly find an answer as to why audiences demand such violent undercurrents in the art we consume, but instead asks more questions about it. The audience may feel demonised by the end, but they'll also certainly be questioning the media they consume from now on.