Badlands (Rated PG)
1973
95 minutes
Widescreen: 1.85:1
After watching “Badlands,” all I could do was stop, sit, and watch the credits roll. I didn’t feel like getting up, but I didn’t feel like sitting either. I was thinking about the movie and what it meant. It’s kind of like watching a nightmare, but I mean that as a compliment. It’s the story of a young couple longing for something more in life. Could it be acceptance? True existence? An adult life? Maybe they just want to have a little fun or maybe they don’t know what they want.
The boy is Kit (Martin Sheen) and the girl is Holly (Sissy Spacek). Kit is a lone 25 year old with not a clue of what he wants to do with his life. Holly says in the beginning of the film that she used to live in Texas, but after her mother died, her father drove them to South Dakota and that’s where they’ve been ever since. She and Kit first meet in her front yard one afternoon. He’s looking for something to do and asks if she wants to take a walk. That’s where their relationship starts, and that’s about as far as it goes. They call it love, but it seems more like a two person support group. Their need is for somebody to talk to.
Kit is a great character because his motivations and ideas are always a surprise. He’ll act like a normal person on the outside, but you never know what he’s thinking about inside. Example: The guy signs with two different signatures, just to be safe from forgeries. You can’t make this sort of thing up. Holly is wonder too, but she has deeper, richer emotions. She wants to know what life has in store for her, while Kit seems happy just living as long as everything works out okay for him.
Trouble starts when Holly’s father finds out she’s been dating Kit. For punishment, he shoots her dog and dumps it in the river (Yeah, he’s not your average Ward Cleaver). After a good while, Kit breaks into Holly’s house and packs a bag for her while they’re out. When she and her father return home, Kit tells him that he plans on taking Holly away. And as though this situation couldn’t get stickier, Holly’s father leaves the room to call the police and Kit shoots him dead. Neither of them seem sad or surprised at the time, but it dawns on them later. Looking for escape, they set the house on fire and scat, but not before leaving a message on a record player for the cops to find. “Just to give them a fair chance,” Kit says (Like I said, you never know what to expect in this movie).
The rest of the film follows the two as they travel through South Dakota, shooting people and trying to find their own places in the world. It’s a great character study and the story is haunting to think about. The movie can be a little slow at times, but it’s well worth the watch. And the music is stunning, especially while the house is burning.
I just found out that the story is based on a real series of murders by a guy named Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate. It’s not as freaky as the truth behind “Psycho,” but it’s creepy just the same. And the characters seem almost identical. They’ve got good minds, but there’s something crazy about each of them.
Grade: B+
And that's why "Badlands" is the Classic Movie of the Week.
P.S. I've included a trailer of the film at the bottom.
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