Badlands details

Badlands
Format: 18 DVD
Starring: Ramon Bieri, Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates
Director: Terrence Malick
Genres: Action/Adventure - Crime, Thriller - Crime
Studio: WARNER HOME VIDEO
Name Discs
Badlands
18 Feature

DVD Information

Run time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Rental release: 26 May 2003
Main languages: English
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Most helpful review Badlands

  • Shooting stars

    Rated - 5.0 stars  
    By Mint400 (10 reviews) from London , 26 Jul 2004

    [Highly rated reviewer]

    Watching this film, you wonder what the protagonists would make of it all if they could watch themselves through our eyes. Holly and Kit are, after all, resolutely self-obsessed, and obsessed by the Hollywood stars that perhaps they imagine themselves to be (and as Sissey Spacek and Martin Sheen, would of course become). They are bored by small-town life, social rules, and pretty much everything except killing, driving and their reflection in each others eyes. Sex would just get in the way, and they make sure it never does.

    Would they notice Terence Malick’s ability to craft unexpected, wholly original, image after image, like some holiday scrapbook from a country that no-one had ever visited? Would these pictures chime with Holly’s adolescent diary as she read it aloud to us, a fumbling attempt at articulacy that she and Kit never try to reproduce with each other? How would Kit regard himself choosing the right hat for his showdown with the Law? Would they wonder what made them go on such an unmotivated killing spree, would they wonder at just how fascinating the two of them could be?

    I guess no matter what they saw, they wouldn’t say a word. It takes a rare talent to know how to be quiet, loudly.
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  • escapist fantasy, pure joy!

    Rated - 5.0 stars  
    By CherylWade (16 reviews) from Sunderland , 06 Oct 2012
    a film I saw first as a kid and it stuck with me for years. I can't explain why, though!

    maybe it's the simple plot, maybe it's the simple photography, maybe it's the simply superb soundtrack!

    Much like Paper Moon, an escapists story of rebellion and outrage delves deep into our own psyche. So compelling, so engrossing.

    With cinematography techniques way way way ahead of their time, Malick produced an out-n-out classic with great quotes and an unforgettable soundtrack from Carl Orf.

    Hire, watch, buy & enjoy!
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  • Just look at the legacy!

    Rated - 4.0 stars  
    By Kowalski (36 reviews) , 09 Sep 2012
    While Badlands is considered a classic film, it isn't as well known as some other, and far less deserving, 'classics'.

    Sheen is brilliant as the consciously post-James Dean literal villain and philisophical anti-hero, mumbling and shrugging as his way through romance and homicide. The star of the film, though, for me, was Sissy Spacek, lending her character's innocence a disturbing and sinister quality that makes her as much a driver as a passenger on the road to Badlands.

    The quality of Badlands is evident in its legacy, with films as good as True Romance and Natural Born Killers doing little to hide their debt to the film. What distinguishes Badlands from these later films is its treatment of the its characters' nihilism; the focus on escapism itself rather than on the extremity of the means of escape lending the characters a sympathy they don't objectively deserve.

    Badlands also addresses the issue of the responsibility of the media in sensational cases. The film tackles this subtley, with the characters' infamy witnessed only in personal interractions. While this is effective, I think the issue is dealt with much more comprehensively in Natural Born Killers.
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  • Weak version of Bonnie and Clyde

    Rated - 1.5 stars  
    By a customer , 02 Apr 2012
    I didn't get this movie. It was very slow paced and boring. There doesn't seem to be any chemistry between the two leading characters. Everything they do is aimless and random, without any passion put into it. Bored boy meets bored girl, bored girl's father disapproves, bored boy kills bored girl's father, bored girl doesn't seem to care, they go on the run, they get even more bored. That pretty much sums it up.

    Sissy Spacek acts like a zombie on drugs, and Martin Sheen can't stop talking, so they are perfect for each other.

    I really didn't understand the hype about this film.
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  • Life on the run

    Rated - 3.5 stars  
    By Ferry41 (221 reviews) from Oxford , 01 Apr 2012
    Martin Sheen really sizzles as a serial killer in an ambivalent relationship with a girl played by Sissy Spacek. This is a now classic film by Terrence Malick. Despite the many deaths the film doesn't feel particularly violent due to the way the actors play everything in such a casual childlike way. Very curious non-Hollywood film.
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  • Hugely influential in the "on-the-run" genre

    Rated - 3.5 stars  
    By Bassman71 (617 reviews) from Didsbury, England , 27 Mar 2012
    Binman starts seeing young girl, Father doesn’t approve, altercation, goes on the run with girl, become infamous, more altercations.

    Very influential on-the-run film with an excellent cast featuring an incredibly handsome Martin Sheen and fragile as ever Sissy Spacek as they go off into the Badlands to escape the Authorities.

    So many films have taken from this especially True Romance which has lots of similarities, it’s shot really well and has a great soundtrack with a very memorable theme.
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