BADLANDS is a minimalist thriller from famed director Terrence Malick, a film which gets by on mood, feeling, and a sense of dejected atmosphere and inevitable foreboding that accompanies the on-screen actions. There's not a great deal of plot complexity in this film, but at the same time it speaks volumes about human existence - a truly existential thriller. A bit like a Herzog film, then.
The story is a straightforward one about a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde who go on a violent road trip across America. Its influence upon the more recent likes of KALIFORNIA and NATIONAL BORN KILLERS is obvious, and yet as the first of its type it clearly has the edge over later additions to the genre. Martin Sheen excels in a frightening, career-making performance, but it's Sissy Spacek who really holds things together. Her quiet, mousy character is somehow the worse of the two, mainly because she deals with intense violence in such a matter-of-fact and accepting way.
The cinematography is excellent and brings out the lonely barrenness of the Colorado locations - it's a shame more Hollywood films don't escape the studios once in a while to celebrate the geography of North America. Warren Oates bags a nice minor but pivotal role, and the set-piece sequences are very well handled. It might be a grim and depressing story - it is based on facts, after all - but in Malick's hands it becomes somehow oddly beautiful.
The story is a straightforward one about a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde who go on a violent road trip across America. Its influence upon the more recent likes of KALIFORNIA and NATIONAL BORN KILLERS is obvious, and yet as the first of its type it clearly has the edge over later additions to the genre. Martin Sheen excels in a frightening, career-making performance, but it's Sissy Spacek who really holds things together. Her quiet, mousy character is somehow the worse of the two, mainly because she deals with intense violence in such a matter-of-fact and accepting way.
The cinematography is excellent and brings out the lonely barrenness of the Colorado locations - it's a shame more Hollywood films don't escape the studios once in a while to celebrate the geography of North America. Warren Oates bags a nice minor but pivotal role, and the set-piece sequences are very well handled. It might be a grim and depressing story - it is based on facts, after all - but in Malick's hands it becomes somehow oddly beautiful.