Rating: 
Summary: Dying of Thirst
Review: "Badlands" is easier to respect than to like or enjoy. As a debut film, it's certainly remarkable, the more so since virtually every aspect of director Terrence Malick's mature style--the lush photography, the intercut images of nature around the central story, the use of voice-over to fill in gaps of motivation in bland, affectless characters--is present from the beginning. It's a rare American film that is so rigorously of a piece, and rarer still for a contemporary filmmaker to trust his audience to respond to his vision for its own sake. That said, "Badlands" is not terribly memorable. I bought it after being stunned by "The Thin Red Line" and feeling that it might be worth a second viewing. (I first saw it in college in the 1970s.) I was struck by how little of it I remembered. Usually films this distinctive leave at least a trace with me--the odd bit of dialogue or behavior here, the haunting, inexplicably moving image there. Nothing about "Badlands" had stuck with me beyond the barest outlines of the story. Indeed, the familiarity of Malick's style works against the film as much as for it. After "Days of Heaven" and "The Thin Red Line," I couldn't help feeling that the director's artful touches were a touch tired and repetitive. Only Sissy Spacek's performance as the nearly comatose 15 year old Holly stays with you. Spacek was 23 when "Badlands" was made, but she's utterly convincing as a baton twirling, teenage cipher. Martin Sheen is competent as Kit, but like most of Sheen's performances, there seems to be something basic lacking. Like the film itself, Sheen's Kit is all of a piece, you can't really criticize his performance, but he never engages the imagination, he's never believeable as someone who could indulge in this level of violence. The rest of the actors might as well be drugged. There's no tension or fear in any of their reactions; in fact, they barely react at all. Nothing spills over. Everything is smooth, clean and refined, but the cumulative effect of all this polish is as dry and bare as the "Badlands" themselves. While that may be intentional, it doesn't make for very spirited viewing. You're likely to feel as indifferent to "Badlands" as the characters are to life. Elegant understatement is certainly nothing to dismiss, especially in American films, but when the precision and artistry are dedicated to demonstrating life's emptiness, it's perverse. I wanted to ask the Texas-born Malick, "If life on the Plains makes you this numb, where did you ever get the motivation to become a filmmaker?"
Rating: 
Summary: An American Classic
Review: "He was handsomer then anybody I've ever met, he looked just like James Dean" narrates the naieve voice over of the gently nostalgic Holly (Sissy Spacek) towards the beginning of Badlands. A serliar killer movie so spare and lacking in sensationalism that its bound to dissapoint the less thoughtful among its viewers. Kit (Matin Sheen) is a real, confident and familiar looking person. He is not a sociopathic religious zealot or a man on a mission, his murders are mostly a matter of convenience, murders that he wouldn't have commited had he not been cornered. He doesn't like killing, but doesn't particualry seem regretful of them either. In short, HE WASN'T EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED. "He never met a 15 year old who behved like a grown up up and weren't gigly" narrates Holly. She too is a loner, living with a morose and firm father. She is smitten by Kit straight away because he seems to be the only one who would accept her. When Kit kills her father early on in the film, there is no screaming, agitation or hysteria you would find in a similar scene in other films. The most chilling thing about this film is the matter of fact manner in which the murders take place. Malick then contrasts this with the bare, spare and beautiful great out doors of South Dakota and Montana. In his best film, the masterpiece The Thin Red Line he suggested that the cruelty of man was natural, that it was only an extention of what goes on in the animal world. Here the idealogy is even more disturbing, which is cruelty and murder as a matter of convenience. Therefore there are now flashy death scenes or stylistic violence, there isn't even a love scene between Kit and Holly. We do not go along for the ride like for example Bonnie and Clyde, instead we examine the events from above. When Kit threatens a couple with a gun, Holly just strolls after him, and tries to socialise with the girl, like Kit she isn't emotionally connected with the murders, her narration suggests nostalgia, as if she was watching these events in a film herself. The only time Kit loses his temper is when Holly refuses to go with him on a car chase from the police, "He wanted a girl to cry over his dead body, he was wondering if he could read about himself in the papers the day after his death." The only thing that would anger him is that he may "GO DOWN IN THE SAME PLAYED OUT SCENES" like Bruce Springsteen says in his song Badlands. Terrance Malick has made three film, all masterpieces. The Thin Red Line remains his best (or anybody's best). Badlands however remains a unique, thoughtful and beautiful film. And for that it should be considered a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: 'Badlands' is an interesting picture that has similarities with a number of other flicks (both before and after) such as 'Bonnie & Clyde', 'Taxi Driver' and 'Natural Born Killers'. Like Jodie Foster in Scorcese's 'Taxi Driver', 'Badlands' has Sissy Spacek as a child thrown into the realities of adulthood and human depravity before her time. Malick constantly juxtaposes images of childhood and innocence alongside the world of murder and violence with which Spacek finds herself suddenly involved. Sheen is the anti-hero along the lines of De Niro's Travis Bickle (was that before or after? Possibly after), a gun-wielding youth who finds himself hailed as something of a hero when the police finally catch up with him. So, we find the director raising questions about the glorification of violence and the twisted values of popular culture. Left me with the same bitter taste in my mouth that I had after watching 'Taxi Driver'.
Rating:
Summary: Our national obsession with celebrity is a theme here
Review: ...Martin Sheen's character totally exploits his James Dean persona and completely relishes his notoriety and celebrity. The movie is really about a nobody who becomes a somebody by virtue of a heinous crime. Terrence Malick examines the cult of celebrity that continues to plague our culture today. Based on a true story, by the way. Carol Anne Fugate, the real life Sissy Spacek character, was one of the youngest people ever to be sentenced (at 15) to life in prison. Martine Sheen's real life counterpart, Charles Starkweather, was executed.
Rating: 
Summary: Step Into 'Badlands'....
Review: ...undercurrent to this moody outlaw moovy is the question of how does one raise children in the desolation of the Dakotas. Would there be enough creative resources to make them reach for something beyond the vacuous images from Hollywood and Madison Ave. that seem to form and fester in every crack, rock, and crevice of the world? That's what this moovy is really about--mass produced images and the obsession with the images ultimately deadening all grips on reality and erasing all senses of right and wrong. So much so that the Martin Sheen character thinks he is James Dean and Sissy Spacek may even feel he's James Dean. Well, actually, she probably wanted an escape from the Dakotas. But, the trip is made more surreal for the moovy-goer when he realises that this is a moovy based on reality about young folks who lose their grips on reality. It has no special effects, just that dreary, spooky Spacek voice-over to carry the story thru. Chilling. Compare with "In Cold Blood" and "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Sugarland Express"...
Rating:
Summary: Being Terry Malick
Review: As a Movie: "Badlands" is durn-near-perfect. It contains first-rate acting, direction, and plot. The plot is based loosely on the Starkweather murders of the 50's, with Martin Sheen as a sociopathic kid with James-Deanian charisma, and Sissy Spacek as his jailbait muse. Sheen seduces the bored, well-to-do pubescent, kills her father, and takes her (willingly) on the lam. The plot is well-suited to the 70's style of filmmaking: string a bunch of vignettes together and hope your actors inhabit the roles consistently enough to make the movie cohere. Sheen is manic, feeding off of his love for Spacek, while Spacek seems to be following along as if she has nothing better to do. Both actors are shockingly blase about the increasing number of murders "necessary" to keep themselves out of handcuffs. Malick's direction is deliciously slow. Long, languorous takes with few edits. Lots of artistic cutaways to rustling leaves (my favorite: a cut to a trapped chicken for no apparent reason), or the looong prairie. This makes you experience how the characters must feel -- that they're alone in a world living at their own pace. As a DVD: I wasn't paying much attention to grain, jumps, or other such videophilia. What I *can* say is that it's a pretty nice transfer according to my eye. It's widescreen, so you can appreciate Malick's framing in full splendor. Extras are slim to none, but I think this is one of those films where extra information is at best unnecessary, and at worst damaging to the feel of the film. Because of the nonlinear plot and first-rate acting, I suspect this movie would stand up to many repeated viewings. I'd say it's worth buying.
Rating:
Summary: Being Terry Malick
Review: As a Movie: "Badlands" is durn-near-perfect. It contains first-rate acting, direction, and plot. The plot is based loosely on the Starkweather murders of the 50's, with Martin Sheen as a sociopathic kid with James-Deanian charisma, and Sissy Spacek as his jailbait muse. Sheen seduces the bored, well-to-do pubescent, kills her father, and takes her (willingly) on the lam. The plot is well-suited to the 70's style of filmmaking: string a bunch of vignettes together and hope your actors inhabit the roles consistently enough to make the movie cohere. Sheen is manic, feeding off of his love for Spacek, while Spacek seems to be following along as if she has nothing better to do. Both actors are shockingly blase about the increasing number of murders "necessary" to keep themselves out of handcuffs. Malick's direction is deliciously slow. Long, languorous takes with few edits. Lots of artistic cutaways to rustling leaves (my favorite: a cut to a trapped chicken for no apparent reason), or the looong prairie. This makes you experience how the characters must feel -- that they're alone in a world living at their own pace. As a DVD: I wasn't paying much attention to grain, jumps, or other such videophilia. What I *can* say is that it's a pretty nice transfer according to my eye. It's widescreen, so you can appreciate Malick's framing in full splendor. Extras are slim to none, but I think this is one of those films where extra information is at best unnecessary, and at worst damaging to the feel of the film. Because of the nonlinear plot and first-rate acting, I suspect this movie would stand up to many repeated viewings. I'd say it's worth buying.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: As with all Malick films, he enjoys potraying the stupid as intellegiant; as victims, of the banality of life. The live based on emotions, well so do, dogs and cats.
Martin Sheen's character shoots people in the back, and reasons, that their motives are wrong because they are "bounty hunters".
Listening to the moronic Sissy Spacec character's narration is almost unbearbable.
But as with any sociopathic characters that are potrayed in the movies, both of the murderers in "Badlands" are extremely good looking.
Which makes his next project of the murderous and good looking Che, seem appropriate.
Rating:
Summary: A shocking, exceptional piece of film
Review: Badlands is a classic. A true classic. Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek give the best performances of their career. The Story, about a young rebellious psychopath who grabs nervous teen in to a spree of murder and mayhem. I first saw this movie when I was 10, and it shocked me in a way none of the other movies I've seen do. Badlands also includes a passionate love story. The scene when Sheen and Spacek dance in the moonlight is a classic. The music (espeecially the credit music) is wonderful too! Badlands is awesome, but be advised that this movie doesn't deserve its PG rating. Who cares? Badlands is on my top ten list.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful Martin Sheen Gem
Review: Badlands, a poweful, occasionally slow-paced, sometimes confusing, five star gem of cinema, this more-or-less proves that Martin's talent is only carbon copied by his son Charlie. Rated PG, but with some very impacting violence (seeing a dog get shot is just terrible, but I'm not a vegetarian)(!) Spacek plays Martin's somewhat naive (only considerably) and repelling lover who is his partner in...killing. The director's debut, probably his biggest accomplishment...I have seen a few spin-offs and carbon copies, but this simply cannot be remade. Especially, there would not be the phenomenal talent this film required involved. Loosely based on a 1950's killing spree, but it seems better if you think of it as fictional. I have the video version by Warner from the early 1980's...it's not even listed on Amazon, but it's way out of print. Try to hunt that down if you must have the novelty release, or just buy the versions avalible on amazon.com if you just have to see this, which you do! This was also avalible on Beta, for vintage video collectors like myself.
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