Natural Born Killers

"Natural Born Killers" is Stone's effort to send up violence — both in our society and in our movies — as well as the media at large, which he believes revels in real-life horror for the sake of profit.

But Stone's attempt to break new ground with stylized visuals, MTV editing and a story that combines parody and satire, is more annoying than enlightening. No one ever accused him of being subtle, but with "NBK," as it has been dubbed, Stone is so in-your-face that after a while you just want him to get out of it.

Blending several film stocks — 8mm, 16mm, 35mm and videotape, as well as black-and-white, color — and using overlapping techniques, along with quick cuts, animation, redundant dialogue and tilted camera angles, Stone is attempting to conjure up the ultimate disorienting nightmare. This is a headache movie that means to make your head ache.

The story has a pair of glorified serial killers — "Actually, we're mass murderers" — on the run, racking up a 52-body count as they cross the country.

Psycho killers Mickey and Mallory (Woody Harrelson, looking appropriately crazed, and Juliette Lewis, reprising her "Kalifornia" wacko) are in love, and they genuinely enjoy their life of crime-on-the-road together. They appar-ently believe that the family that blows people away together stays together.

Their killing spree begins with her family, as they brutally murder Mallory's abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and then set her complacent mother (Edie Mc-Clurg) on fire. This lengthy sequence is played like a TV sitcom, complete with a laugh track, though it seems contrived and idiotic instead of shocking.

They go on to kill an Indian shaman (Russell Means) who has befriended them (and who seems to be straight out of Stone's "The Doors"), find themselves celebrated as anti-establishment heroes on documentary-style TV tabloid shows (a la Stone's "JFK"), are pursued by a sleazy cop (Tom Sizemore) and eventually wind up in prison, where the nutso warden (Tommy Lee Jones) can't wait to see them fried on national television. And the most exploitative tabloid TV reporter in the country (Robert Downey Jr., affecting an Australian accent) hopes to make it happen.

There is much more, of course, but suffice it to say that "NBK" was, for me, a major disappointment, a genuine example of style overwhelming substance. While some national critics are hailing Stone's film as a triumph, a masterpiece of wit and nerve, I found it exploitative, self-indulgent and more than a little hypocritical. What's more, all of the snazzy technique seems fruitless, merely muddying up the narrative rather than making the material more compelling.

And since everyone around Mickey and Mallory — from her parents to their victims to the authority figures who pursue them — are more corrupt than they are, there is nary a sympathetic character among the entire cast. That's the point, of course. When you can't sympathize with society at large, you are forced to sympathize with Mickey and Mallory.

But I didn't sympathize with any of them. And certainly not with Stone.

"Natural Born Killers" is rated R for nonstop violence, gore, sex, nudity, profanity and vulgarity.