Wild at Heart (1990)
An inventive, crazy, abusive, drugged up, violent, sexed up, romantic, anti-romantic, road trip pseudo noir campy intense up and down silly disturbing movie.
But is it any good? Is it fun to watch, or moving, or beautiful? Maybe, if you are pre-disposed. At times I was amused or bemused or fascinating or surreal in a raw and theatrical way. It doesn't always add up, and even though it isn't meant to, the movie feels so self-indulgent you feel like the style is used to hide sloppy movie-making. It's a campy mess, really, with a whole slew of episodic turns and twists. You couldn't really care less about anyone or anything. It's too comic booky for that.
Nick Cage is a bit too much to take, too...you might find him funny, or just overacting. There are some terrific performances--a hyped up, silly sexy Laura Dern, a hardened Isabella Rosselini, a characteristic Harry Dean Stanton, an unpredictable Willem Defoe, and so on, quite a quirky cast! A lot happens in two hours, and it has that wide open American landscape behind it. It's no doubt sexist, but I doubt any of its fans care a bit.
And luckily, this kind of highly stylized film has its fans. Surely the glossy saturated nightmare and all the sex and violence is has all the earmarks of counterculture hedonism. That's good if you're into that. But I constantly think how much more powerful it could have been. There are moments, and scenes, that are fabulous, really brilliant. But in the long run it's a lazy movie, depending on its weirdness far too often. For me that's not enough. Curious, but not enough.
An inventive, crazy, abusive, drugged up, violent, sexed up, romantic, anti-romantic, road trip pseudo noir campy intense up and down silly disturbing movie.
But is it any good? Is it fun to watch, or moving, or beautiful? Maybe, if you are pre-disposed. At times I was amused or bemused or fascinating or surreal in a raw and theatrical way. It doesn't always add up, and even though it isn't meant to, the movie feels so self-indulgent you feel like the style is used to hide sloppy movie-making. It's a campy mess, really, with a whole slew of episodic turns and twists. You couldn't really care less about anyone or anything. It's too comic booky for that.
Nick Cage is a bit too much to take, too...you might find him funny, or just overacting. There are some terrific performances--a hyped up, silly sexy Laura Dern, a hardened Isabella Rosselini, a characteristic Harry Dean Stanton, an unpredictable Willem Defoe, and so on, quite a quirky cast! A lot happens in two hours, and it has that wide open American landscape behind it. It's no doubt sexist, but I doubt any of its fans care a bit.
And luckily, this kind of highly stylized film has its fans. Surely the glossy saturated nightmare and all the sex and violence is has all the earmarks of counterculture hedonism. That's good if you're into that. But I constantly think how much more powerful it could have been. There are moments, and scenes, that are fabulous, really brilliant. But in the long run it's a lazy movie, depending on its weirdness far too often. For me that's not enough. Curious, but not enough.