Customer Reviews

Natural Born Killers

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Quentin Tarantino took his name off the Oliver Stone film version of "Natural Born Killers." Read this fine screenplay, the one Stone virtually scrapped, and you will understand why. It's tightly focused, where Stone is distractingly all over the map; witty, where Stone is merely crude; deeply shocking and thought-provoking, where Stone is mindlessly sensational. Tarantino reveals himself to be a genuine moralist, of all things. As glamorous as the media finds Mickey and Mallory, Tarantino never lets you forget they are monsters. (Stone caved into the temptation to try to make them "likable" by presenting unbelievable, '60's-induced apologies for them.) Nobody gets off the hook in this version. One hopes that someday Tarantino can get the backing to remake the film his way. It should be a classic.

I rented the movie directed by Oliver Stone due to the fact that Quentin Tarantino's name was on the story credits and I knew that Oliver Stone among others had messed with his script and Tarantino had removed his name from the screenwriting credits but I wanted to see it anyways.I thought the movie sucked,I hated it.So I bought the original script to see how the movie could've been and this is a great script.There's no mention of how the cinematography should look.There's no sexually abusive sitcom father,nor indian guy.This is how the film should have been.The movie is virtually just a big TV special by Wayne Gale who was played in the movie by Robert Downey Jr. The story is amazingly different.The opening scene is the same though.The story is basically Mickey and Mallory Knox in jail while Mickey is being interviewed by Wayne Gale.That's it.Buy this script.Burn the movie.Enjoy

There are people who seem to either enjoy Stone's movie and hate Quentin's screenplay or vice versa. Fact is I enjoyed both. Quentin Tarantino's original screenplay for "Natural Born Killers" is far different from the nightmarish acid trap that it became once Oliver Stone got his hands on it. Stone's film is far more epic and sadistic though Quentin's version isn't exactly a day at Disney World either. Much of Quentin's work is used in the film version though the way the story is told is so completely different than it was clearly conceived. The opening diner sequence is nearly the exact same as presented in the film though this is really the only one of Mickey and Mallory's murder spree sequences that Quentin intended to include (aside from the court room murder which was "deleted" from Stone's cut). Following that, the script takes a much different approach with it being told almost entirely in a documentary style with Wayne Gale (played in the film by Robert Downey) acting as the central character. Jack Scagnetti, who was a sadistic crooked cop in Stone's "NBK", is far less brutal in this one and is not positioned as a longtime rival of the murderous couple but more as a veteran cop being sold into hauling the two killers to the asylum. While the character of Dewight McClusky (played by Tommy Lee Jones in the movie) was a character in this script as well, his role is decreased and most of his action was written for a character named Wurlitzer, who didn't make Stone's version. The majority of the first half of the filmed "Killers" was not a part of the original Tarantino story and most of the social commentary was also absent. If you're a Tarantino fan or someone who would like a different take on the "NBK" story, this is an intruiging read.

It's hard to say which version is the better one--Oliver Stone's 1994 film version or Tarantino's original script; but it's fair to say that some of the most imaginative segments of the film (like Mallory's tortured home life played in sit-com style) were inspired directly from the script. But some scenes in the movie (like the Indian living in the desert with his rattlesnakes) are original additions made by Oliver Stone for the film.
But the biggest difference between the script and the film is the addition of back-stories to most of the main characters in the movie version; in the script Mallory and Mickey have little to no history (though passing references are made about Mallory killing her parents with Mickey), as does Jack Scagnetti. In the movie Detective Scagnetti has a perverse fascination with Mallory, and his mother was shot dead by Charles Whitman in the Texas tower shootings--which is given as reason to Scagnetti's fascination with serial killers (he kills a hooker in the film too). Plus, Stone also emphasized the point that Mickey Knox was abused constantly by his father as a child, and also witnessed his father's suicide (which is not in the original script as well).
IMO Oliver Stone vastly improved on the original screenplay (in his own perverse, psycho-sexual way); because frankly, the script--even though it has Tarantino's trademark dialog and tense action scenes--falls a little flat due to one-dimensional characters. But if you're fan of the film, it'll be an interesting read, because the basic story is the same.

Tarantino's original script for 'Natural Born Killers' is vastly superior to the movie. Oliver Stone's film version (while still entertaining and transgressive)is meandering and extreme for the sake of extremity (in everything from the jarring editing to unnecessary scenes-like the young woman-Scagnetti murder scene to Mickey hinting at the rape of his hostage and Mallory's subsequent seduction of the gas station attendant). To his credit, I understand what Stone is trying to achieve: a statement about media culture and an increasingly amoral American psyche, but he doesn't quite succeed, in my opinion. The result is an uneven movie with a bit too much padding.

Unlike the original script, the film provides the background stories for Mickey and Mallory so that the audience can empathize with why they are the way they are. There is also a scene in which the killer couple have a spiritual epiphany after encountering a Native American shaman. Despite their respect for the shaman, Mickey accidentally kills him after a bad dream. The movie is effectively commenting on several things: The hypocrisy of a 50's American ideal of family and it's disillusioning affect upon our serial killing antiheroes, in addition, the shaman scene also screams of American hypocrisy-the history between the colonists and Native Americans and also an insincere, self-righteous idea of spirituality on the part of Mickey and Mallory. But these things are lost in translation-what exactly is the movie trying to be, a psychological profile of the American serial killer and how American history and culture shaped such human beings? Or, is it a satire of the 'serial killer' and the (media) culture surrounding him/her? Because Stone's film tries to do both at once, the film feels shallow (even if impassioned) since it cannot satisfy both topics completely.

Tarantino's script, on the other hand, is much more focused. It knows exactly what it is-a black satire of serial killer culture in America. Mickey and Mallory are much more absent in Tarantino's version. Instead, the two are more of a symbol or driving force for the real story, that of the journalists and policemen whom are after them. The hypocrisy of this story is in the characterization of the policemen and journalists because they are less concerned with the welfare of the people than they are with furthering their careers, social status and so forth.

The biggest change, however, is with Mickey and Mallory themselves, who are much more mythical here than in the movie. In the film we understand why they are so extreme (what with their backgrounds and all), not so with this script, where they are ambiguous-they serve more as moderators of the unjust (the corrupt policemen and the opportunist paparazzi), which heightens the satire because the roles of the just and the unjust have been reversed (Mickey and Mallory, although killers, represent love and are the only truly honest characters).

The script has far less unnecessary story bits. As I said earlier, the Stone version has a scene in which Scagnetti kills a young woman. Why is this important? We already knew that he was an opportunist and a corrupt police officer. In the script, Scagnetti's corruption is hinted at several times but doesn't include the murder/rape scene, which would've been overkill. The script is much more subtle in this regard.

Simpler and more focused than the film (not to mention much more fun), I highly recommend this original script. Get it with the flick and compare for yourself!

This was a good screenplay. I read this one twice. I have not read Oliver Stone's version. I wouldn't mind thoug. Quentin should have directed this movie as well. He put True romance in the hands of action director TONY SCOTT. Oliver Stone shouldn't of got this.

This was a great book! Tarantino did a great job of depicting the 90's. The way he made the media justify the acts of Mikey and Mallory was incredible! You know an author is good at what he does when he can make readers glorify two mass murderers such as these. RICK BARNETT

I've always wondered why people read plays but not movie scripts, and after reading "Natural Born Killers," I wonder that even more.
This is a great script for a movie that could have been excellent if Quentin Tarantino, the script's author, had directed the movie himself. I don't know WHAT Oliver Stone was trying to do.
The script, in case you don't know, is the story of a husband and wife with an insane past that go on a love-fuelled, almost invincible killing rampage across the country. Their crimes are senseless and random, and the media (and the public) LOVES them. It's the bizarre story of their killing sprees, their romance, their capture, and their escape, and...well, I don't want to give too much away.
The script follows an incredibly cool format, of being mostly an hour-long TV special about the two killers, intertwined with the people making the TV special and interviewing the killers themselves, intertwined with flashbacks.
It could have been an amazing movie, but instead we got a weird, cartoonish mess that exudes barely any of the well-developed themes, tight action, and believable characters (individuals and mobs) that Quentin Tarantino actually wrote.
Read the script, and skip the movie--that's what I say. Read the script, and hope that maybe someday Tarantino will remake the movie himself, the right way, the way it should have been.

This is, quite frankly, one of the most boring scripts I have ever read. The only reason I finished it was that I was such a huge fan of the movie. It is vastly inferior to Oliver Stone's version of the film, and far from portraying the charatcters as "monsters," it portrays them as two-dimensional cartoons. There is no development for any of these characters, and there is no reason given that Mickey and Mallory would even care about each other. Their relationship isn't even really hinted at. One of the truly great things about Stone's film was the way that Mickey and Mallory were portrayed in the middle, from when they actually were married to when they were finally arrested, especially in the scene with the Indian. Tarantino's script lacks any subtlety, contrary to what another reviewer stated. What Oliver Stone created from this script was a mesmerizing film about thhe allure and addiction to violence in our culture. What Tarantino envisioned was a juvenile mishmash of unappealing characters without even a reason to exist. (What the Hell was the point of Wayne Gale's assistant having no tongue?) Anyway, I hope that Tarantino continues to move on from this very amateur script, and never tries to make his own version, as I'm sure he won't. I hope he at least realizes that this script was NOT that good.

A man who has not lived a life cannot tell a real story. Tarentino's films are universally and fundamentally boring for anyone who has ever lived a real life and not just fantasized about having one. His dipictions of violence eminate from his own personal lack of sexual energy. Sadly, teenage males without girlfriends seem to like these slammed together video games that are being called brilliant, and continue to support the trash factory that generates this type of hyper garbage. It's especially sad when a true film afficienado understands the brilliance of all of the original pictures which he doggedly ripped off and claimed the scenes for his own. If one more person calls this sad, pathetic, lack of a man a genious, I will become even more sick of him. Please get a life and buy a real movie.