Badlands
Tags: bleak, atmospheric, cult, murder, violence

Plot synopsis:
Badlands is set in 1959 and is narrated by the impressionable 15-year-old Holly Sargis (Spacek), a teenage girl living in a dead-end South Dakota town called Fort Dupree. She lives with her sign painter father, although their relationship has been strained since her mother died of pneumonia some years earlier. One day Holly meets the 25-year-old garbage collector Kit Carruthers (Sheen). Kit is a young, troubled greaser, who resembles James Dean, an actor Holly admires. Kit charms Holly, and she slowly falls in love with him. Holly's narration, describing her adventures with Kit in romantic clichés, is juxtaposed with the gradual revelations of Kit's increasingly antisocial and violent behavior.
Holly's father disapproves of Holly and Kit's relationship, and shoots her dog as a punishment for spending time with him. Kit then comes to Holly's house and shoots her father dead. The couple fakes suicide by burning down the house and go on the run together, making their way towards the badlands of Montana. Kit and Holly build a treehouse in a remote area and live there happily for a time, fishing and stealing chickens for food, but are eventually discovered by bounty hunters. Kit shoots the three bounty hunters dead, and the couple flees. They next seek shelter with Kit's friend Cato, but when Cato attempts to deceive them and go for help, Kit shoots him; he also shoots a teenage couple who arrives to visit Cato shortly thereafter.
Kit and Holly are hunted across the Midwest by law enforcement. They stop at a rich man's mansion and take supplies, clothing, and his Cadillac, but spare the lives of the man and his housemaid. As the fugitives head across Montana to Saskatchewan, the police find and pursue them.
Holly, who is tired of life on the run and of her relationship with Kit, refuses to go with him and turns herself in. Kit leads the police on a car chase but is soon caught, and enjoys the attention he receives from police and reporters. They admire him and engage with him as he is sitting in their custody, asking him questions and cracking jokes. Kit is later executed for his crimes, while Holly receives probation and marries her defense attorney's son.

Review: Inspired by a tragic short news item which took place in 1959 (a young couple who decides to commit a series of free murders to leave a mark in history), the odds are that Malick's first feature-length movie inspired Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino for their dangerous and irresponsible "Natural Born Killers" (1994).
Starkweather and Fugate's story "inspired" several films, including this one.In "Badlands", the pair's names were changed to Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen) and Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek), and their ages were altered slightly.
It's like she's reading a diary of what happened as we, the viewers, watch movie footage of the events.The film's title is appropriate, given that the characters' inner lives must surely have been wastelands, and given that the film's plot takes place mostly outdoors, on the lonesome High Plains, with its brooding and "stark" landscape.The film's color cinematography conveys a mood of desolation, especially in those scenes that contain little more than the horizon, expansive blue sky, treeless plains, and a couple of lonely desperados.
The sheer innocence of her character, her bright-eyed view of the world, her acceptance of Kit's explanations make a stronger point in the examination of two completely alienated individuals than any other movie I can think of.Martin Sheen has never been better than here.
Writer/producer/director Terence Malick leads his film along with a true emphasis on both the psychological nature of Kit (Martin Sheen) and Holly (Sissy Spacek), and with the un-canny knack for a relaxing style in his camera.
If there was any pretentiousness at all, it went over my head; this is a film that draws you into its tragic nature.Sheen and Spacek are totally believable as a couple on the run, as Kit continually has a trigger-happy attitude to people after he shoots Holly's father.
If there is any distance between his character and the audience, there's still a strong, emotional connection through Spacek, and their bond as a loving, if dangerous, couple.Overall, Badlands is extraordinary in a way that doesn't cram its atmospheric from start to finish on the audience, and it looks at young people in love, however in such twisted circumstances, in an honest way in how escalatory events create a disillusioned feeling in youth.
Terrence Malick's crime-drama Badlands (1973), loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather in 1958, is a harrowing and bleak film on a teenager's murderous adventure with his girlfriend.
Kit decides to leave town and take Holly with him, when her father tries to stop him he kills him and heads off on the run.Although on the surface this sounds like a lovers-on-the-run film with a serial killer edge, Malick's writing and direction prevents it from just being what you expect as he delivers a memorable debut.
While the end credits were rolling I noticed an on screen disclaimer along the lines of " All the characters and situations are fictional and any relation between the events depicted in this film is entirely coincidental " which had me scratching my head because whenever I read about Terence Malik's BADLANDS I'm told that it's based on a true story about two teenage lovers who went on a killing spree in 1950s America .
Though he got himself a very interesting subject in loosely adapting the story of real-life murderer Charles Starkweather, his writing made me find the story dull after just a couple of minutes and the one and a half hours running time felt like an eternity.Admittedly, the relationship the two protagonists have can make for some good scenes from time to time and the car chase (70's car chase, mind you) near the ending for once also brings some excitement to the film, but altogether, Malick really stretches the story out way too long and remarkable moments are very sparse.
The acting can't carry the film either and the chemistry of Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek is absolutely weak, making the characters' feelings and thoughts not any clearer it all.I've noticed most people feeling more positive about this film than I do and I really attempted to understand some of their arguments, but to me, Terrence Malick completely wastes a great premise and has his film lacking any sort of recognition value.
If Badlands was supposed to be an exercise in proving to this viewer that character Kit Carruthers was, indeed, the stupidest psycho-killer on the entire face of this planet, then, yes, it succeeded in its task, commendably.And, if Badlands was also out to prove that Kit's girl, Holly, was the most boring and apathetic accessory to his crimes, imaginable, then, once again, it accomplished its goal, admirably.To say that Badlands could've (and should've) been a helluva lot better than it was would truly be an understatement of the highest order.Filled-to-overflowing with demented dialogue, and endless "dead-air" moments, Badlands was, without question, one of those dimwitted stories that I swear they were just making it up as they went along.Based on a true-crime story, or not - The only thing that this truly godawful picture earned its 2-star rating for was some really impressive camera-work (when it came to the awesome images of the wide-open country in South Dakota and Texas)..
Martin Sheen is really good in his role as a kind of wannabe James Dean, and Sissy Spacek plays the naive 15 year old a bit too naively, though she has a country-girl innocence that sets up the violence well.
Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen), a social burnout running garbage in Fort Dupre, South Dakota, strikes up a friendship with Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek), an oddball teen living in the shadow of a cruel and domineering father (Warren Oates).
Indeed, if any aspect of the movie borders on the overblown, it's the heavy use of voice-over narration, which is almost an act of subtlety in disguise: we get so caught up in the rhythm of Holly's easy-going, matter-of-fact exposition that we forget about all the things she's not telling us, like why she condones Kit's violence, or why she follows him into the middle of nowhere, or why she spends her days happily enjoying the affections of the very man who murdered her father.
Martin Sheen (looking very much like Charlie) plays the young man named Kit. Sissy Spacek plays Holly, his young girlfriend.
Sissy Spacek is wonderful as the young lady originally enthralled by this guy who looks like James Dean, but then gradually pulls away from him as his spree continues.The film has some disturbing scenes of animal cruelty.
'Down In The Valley (2005)' is a underrated film about a charismatic but mentally unstable man who falls for a teenage girl, with a knock out performances by Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood, David Morse and Rory Culkin.The reason I mention that movie is because, even though I didn't really like 'Badlands (1973)' I can see a clear influence on that movie, so I can kind of respect it for that reason.But for me this movie is just not that great, it lacks emotion intentionally and much sense of reality and instead focuses on being a slightly bizarre over romanticized tale of what it's like being on the run with no regards to human life except their own.With a overabundance of monologues which are meant to be poetic but just comes across as cheesy.It looks good though and it has inspired better films so there's always that..
Telling the story of a young couple in Dakota in the 1950s, Badlands takes us on the journey of Kit and Holly (the young Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek) as he kills and she tags along.
The progression of this dark journey is fascinating, made more so by the fairy tale structure that Malick gives the film.We open with Spacek in voice-over, watching her play with her dog on her bed, almost as if coming in on a young girl's dream, and slowly more and more blood is shed across the land.
Through the use of Spacek's ethereal voice constantly playing over sequences of the two on the lamb, along with a hauntingly energetic and child-like musical score, Malick creates a stark contrast between light and dark that sets this tale of young love and violence wildly apart from any others that had come before it (or the dozens upon dozens that tried to emulate it afterwards).
As told through the flat narration of fifteen-year-old Holly (Sissy Spacek), it's the story of a couple (Spacek and Martin Sheen as Kit) who travel through the plains on a spree that happens to involve murdering those who pose a threat.
One of the themes that flow through Malick's films is the communal relationship humans have with the laws of nature and that impulse has an implicit synchronicity with those laws; this concept goes a long way towards the characters' motivations as Kit kills and as the couple moves away from a sexual relationship to one based on primal needs ranging from mere survival to putting down roots.
This is a fairy-tale, taking place outside of any sense of the "real world" as it is defined.Focusing on the misadventures of Kit, a 25 year old antisocial who has little in mind of what he wants to do and the 15 year old naive girl, Holly, who accompanied him, this film is certainly the work of a particular artist's vision.
There is a commentary here on the adoption of available roles - from the currency of their reading (Marco Polo and Hollywood gossip) through to the vapidity or absence of authority figures, where Kit can invent and reinvent himself in mediated roles, Holly remains a blank, a landscape unshaped by human understanding.A remarkable film, untrammelled by the subsequent genre norms, which will frustrate a viewer more familiar with Natural Born Killers, but which rewards a quiet watching, not for the thrills, which are few, but for quality of thinking which went into making this movie..
Badlands is a timeless masterpiece, which has been unofficially remade countless times (True Romance, which has a similar score, and Natural Born Killers are two good examples), yet none of the copycats can top the power of Terrence Malick's simple but gripping debut.The plot, as I said, is now very common: two people fall in love, he (Martin Sheen) kills her (Sissy Spacek) father, and the couple starts running, while leaving several corpses behind.Malick is a genius, a poet who alternates the beautiful (the gorgeous, endless landscape, the romantic sunsets) and the ugly (the various murders).
That's the real beauty with Malick: he makes movies even more rarely than Kubrick did, but they're so powerful they justify all the waiting.The leading couple is one of the best on-screen pairings I've ever seen: Spacek is perfect right from the beginning as the innocent girl who gets involved in the whole mess just because she thinks she's in love, and Sheen gives one of his best performances as James Dean wannabe Kit Carruthers (it's right up there with Capt.
It is, like Days of Heaven and Thin Red Line, an utterly unique confluence of story, picture, and sound, one that plays each element off the next to a mysterious and mind-blowing effect.Malick taps into the deepest and most resonant strains of the American character with Kit Caruthers: the lonesome, violent, yet extremely likeable fellow who will never be as big as the land, who will never get any closer to those Montana mountains.
I expected quite a lot from this movie since it was so highly recommended by a lot of people.Maybe it's my problem but I didn't see it's so called brilliance.Sure it has some nice moments but hardly enough to make it an all time classic.The acting is good though and some of the shots of the badlands are very beautiful.Still,at times I almost fell asleep during the long conversation scenes.Maybe it was that my expectations were too high or it was the fact that I saw "Mulholland Dr." for the second time just before that,after that film almost everything pales in comparison....
The performances of Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen are spot on and never has narration in a film been used as well as in this one.The film has a haunting beauty to it and director Terrence Malick use of music is perfect.Beautifully made and thoughtout.
Malick choice of shots and editing is very impressive, engaging the viewer with a simple story of Spacek's isolated character hooking up with a young James Dean like man-boy rebel Kitt, well played by Martin Sheen, who is very effective in portraying a character significantly younger than Sheen was at the time.
In outline it may sound like violent exploitation, but under Malick's sensitive and sympathetic direction the film becomes an unsettling slice of Americana, restrained almost to the point of invisibility but shaded with quiet insight and dry wit (says Sissy Spacek about her trigger-happy boyfriend Martin Sheen while driving across the prairie monotony of eastern Montana: "Kit told me to enjoy the scenery, and I did.") Malick's original script is a model of both moral and emotional detachment, presenting each murder as a crime of dispassion sparked not out of anger or desperation, but by simple convenience and an almost childlike disregard for consequences (reflected in the equally innocent music score).
A Boy and a Girl Embark on an Adventure...A Deadly One. Malick's 'Badlands' is based on the story of the infamous murderous duos Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate who went on a murder spree killing eleven innocent people.
The film came first and while I'm not sure if it directly inspired Springsteen's writing, both film and song stand up as great examples of their respective arts.A film with at its centre a casually psychopathic trigger-happy youth with a James Dean fixation (the setting for the movie is late 50's America, only a few years after the star's early death) who picks up an almost equally casual if non-homicidal teenage girl-friend, the film combines a study of their strange relationship with the panoramic scope of a "road movie" to great effect - both aspects work superbly.No explanations are offered for Kit (Martin Sheen in a live-wire performance) and his actions - the first time we see him with a gun he's using it to shoot down the father of new girlfriend Holly (Spacek).
The film is also set in the late fifties, although it is relocated from Nebraska and Wyoming, where the Starkweather/Fugate killings took place, to the badlands of South Dakota and Montana (hence the title).The main characters are here named Kit and Holly.
The romantic clichés with which she describes her adventures contrast oddly with the grim reality of the violence perpetrated by Kit. There is some doubt as to whether Fugate ever participated in Starkweather's killings or whether she merely remained a passive spectator; in the film, Holly takes no active part in Kit's crimes, but is clearly guilty of aiding and abetting them."Badlands" was Terrence Malick's debut film.
Malick said of his characters that "Kit and Holly even think of themselves as living in a fairy tale", and there is something otherworldly or dreamlike about the look of the film, a look that contrasts sharply with its grisly subject-matter.It was brave move on Malick's part not only to deal, in his very first film, with the subject of serial killing but also to tell the story from the point of view of the killers themselves.
Kit (a good Martin Sheen) shoots anyone who stands in his way without much emotion or thought and although Holly (Sissy Spacek) doesn't participate in the killings her reactions and comments to what happens are cool and neutral.
Regardless, both characters possess an empty void because they are truly in over their heads as if (and maybe they don't) they cannot understand the consequences of their actions.Badlands is a very contemplative, thought-provoking feature film debut by Terrence Malick.
Effort once again is made to make the audience care for the characters, but it isn't a Malick film without astounding visuals and a haunting emotionally resonant score, Badlands has both.The acting is top notch especially from Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek and Warren Oates gives fine support too.
We see that Kit (Martin Sheen) leads a pretty amoral life but clearly loves Holly (Sissy Spacek).I've read comparisons to Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers".
A critically acclaimed independent film based on the Starkweather Fugate killings of the 1950s.Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen) is an aimless garbage collector with an interest in James Dean who starts to romance Holly (Sissy Spacek.) Her father (Warren Oates) a sign painter is not happy that Kit is seeing his daughter.
One day Holly meets a 25-year old James Dean look-a-like garbage man & greaser named Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen).Then, they both go on a cross country killing spree from South Dakota to the Badlands of Montana.
Holly's narration describes her adventures with Kit. The story, though fictional, is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.I thought the movie was a fantastic masterpiece for many reasons.
His first film was the drama Badlands, which films like True Romance, Natural Born Killers and Stoker owned a debt to.Holly (Sissy Spacek) is a 15-year-old Texan girl who lives in a small town in 1950s South Dakota.
After trying to live out in the wilderness Kit ends up going on a killing spree and Holly forced on the ride as her feeling of love and romance are conflicted with Kit's violence nature.Malick is known for making visually impressive films and giving them excellent soundtracks: Badlands is no exception.
In Badlands, a young Martin Sheen (Kit) and Sissy Spacek (Holly) essentially roam the plains of Colorado killing people, usually to cover their tracks and to keep themselves from being caught.
Badlands (1973) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Terrence Malick's cult classic about a garbage man (Martin Sheen) and his girlfriend (Sissy Spacek) who go on a cross country murdering spree.