Number 392 on the top 1000 films of all time is Terrence Malik's directorial debut: the 1973 neo-noir period crime drama Badlands.
Loosely based on the true-life story of spree killers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, Badlands tells the story of twenty-five year old Korean war veteran and greaser Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen.) He is a deeply troubled individual who quickly forms a relationship with the naive, impressionable fifteen year old Holly Sargis (Sissy Spasek.) The two of them soon embark on a murder spree across America.
Badlands is the third Terrence Malik film I've seen after Days of Heaven and the Thin Red Line. I didn't like either of those films finding them slow, boring and overly-philosophical. I didn't enjoy them so much that I didn't think I would ever like a Terrence Malik film. But I will happily admit that I was wrong in that assessment. Badlands was a thrilling and engaging crime drama with some brilliant performances from its lead actors.
For his role as the psychotic Kit Carruthers, Martin Sheen deservedly won the Best Actor Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Sissy Spacek was nominated for the Most Promising Newcomer at the BAFTA's. Both of them were great. Spacek remarked on the chemistry she had with Martin Sheen and this really showed through on-screen. It would be easy to compare them to Bonnie and Clyde, but their relationship was far different. Rather than being a willing accomplice like Bonnie, Holly seemed more like an innocent young woman caught up in Kit's charismatic charm.
And Kit had all the charm and charisma you would expect from a spree killer. No doubt carrying trauma from the PTSD, he is completely cut off from his emotions and any sense of human decency. Sheen shone in the lead role. He was engrossing as Kit Carruthers. Usually when you have "couple" killers, it is the man that initiates like with the Moors Murderers or Paul Bernado and Karla Homolka, with the woman usually claiming they were bewitched by their male counterparts. However true that actually is Sheen was spellbinding in his role.
Unlike the bloated The Thin Red Line, the Badlands is only ninety minutes long meaning the pacing was terrific. The tension rarely let up for a second as we see how Kit and Holly attempt to navigate this new life they've created for themselves.
Granted Terrence Malik wasn't the easiest to work with as many members of the crew quit during production. Malik went through three different cinematographers and allegedly he was practically the only one left by the time the shoot had finished. Despite this, the film remained cohesive and unified. You might expect it to look like a disparate, disconnected mess but this was far from the case. Perhaps that's because how Malik also wrote, produced and edited the film ensuring that his vision remained intact. I loved the cinematography too, as it really emphasised the isolated American landscape.
If I were to criticise anything it would be Sissy Spasek's voiceover. Holly narrates the film throughout, but her narration is little more than exposition serving no purpose except for explaining things that the audience could have figured out for themselves. It was a strange choice by Malik as it suggests that he either didn't trust himself to explain his vision clearly enough or that he didn't trust his audience enough to understand it properly. Yet neither of these seem very likely from what I know about Terrence Malik.
That minor criticism aside, I thoroughly enjoyed Badlands. I wasn't expecting to like it at all but I'm very happy to say that it proved me wrong.
