Badlands

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Ron L Apr 19, 2019 Terrence Malick's fearless debut, considering Lanton Mills can only be seen at the American Film Institute we can view this as his debut, is a stunning piece of cinema that studies the intersection between the cultural glamorization of criminals and the real-life crimes this inspires. The film is centrally about an innocent young woman Holly, played by Sissy Spacek, who is bored with her life in small-town 1950s Texas and is drawn to the dangerous Kit, a young Martin Sheen, an attraction that will have disastrous outcomes. The wide Texas sky is captured so beautifully in the film that you feel as though you are living in the world that Kit and Holly inhabit and as they travel further and further north we become increasingly isolated from them. The film feels almost like a response to Bonnie and Clyde (1967) which glamorizes it's central murderous couples and the crimes they commit. Badlands alternatively causes us to be repulsed by the actions of Kit and to at many points understand that he is crazy and worthy of disgust. We can cheer for Kit's fate at the end of the film whilst also feeling ambivalent about Holly as a character because she stood by him throughout the majority of the film. Spacek gives the best performance that any actress has given in a Terrence Malick film by creating a character with childlike innocence who is still capable of introspection at crucial moments in the film. Her voice-over is alternately entertaining and horrifying as she tells us "Kit told me I was the smartest 15 year old he had ever met" and "Kit was the most trigger-happy person I'd ever met." Sheen gives a performance on par with his much acclaimed turn in Apocalypse Now (1979) as a terrifying murderer obsessed with cultural figures such as James Dean. The inspiration for Sheen's character was real-life murderer Charles Starkweather and he is said to have studied the real life case in order to give an accurate performance. There are several iconic shots in the film, from Sheen holding a gun nonchalantly whilst the sun sets behind him, Spacek opening her heavily lined eyes and the two of them dancing in a tree house in the middle of the desert. These have all been clearly orchestrated by Malick and his cinematographers and they have their intended effect as they stick in your mind, so beautiful that they could be placed in a picture frame and hung on your wall at home. It is exciting to see the origins of Malick's iconic visual style and this is one of his best films if only for the reason that he is able to combine this visual style with an interesting story set around a tight script. It goes without saying that I would certainly recommend this film to anyone. For those unitiated to Malick this is a good jumping off point because it is more accessible than the majority of his work. For anyone who has seen only his more recent works this is a clearer, more pure Malick vision and stands among his best films. This and Days of Heaven (1978) are his most plot-based films and that makes them very watchable and intense, to some ranking this third would be sacrilege but I stand by my choice because I think Days of Heaven (1978) is his better early work and The New World (2005) is more emotionally engaging. See more

Jan 26, 2019 The best, GREATEST romance movie ever made! With 2 of the best movie characters ever portrayed: Martin Sheen as Kit Carruthers and Sissy Spacek as Holly Sargis! See more

Harry M Jan 20, 2019 An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands. Terrence Malick's debut is a masterful slice of American cinema, rife with the visual poetry and measured performances that would characterize his work. The movie is just as free, experimental, and unsure of itself as its main characters are, and thus fits like a glove. Among the great American crime movies, 1973's Badlands stands alone. See more

Harry S Dec 15, 2018 This cold, bland debut from Terrence Malick shows his raw talent before he honed it into something more usable.

Harry W Nov 15, 2018 Now I see where the vibe from True Romance comes from. Same score, same innocent girlish voiceover, and both are awesome! See more

Leia P Nov 6, 2018 This film was amazing!

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Badlands

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