Badlands
Composite Score: 87.17
Starring: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri, Alan Vint, Gary Littlejohn, and John Carter
Director: Terrence Malick
Writer: Terrence Malick
Genres: Action, Crime, Drama
MPAA Rating: PG
Box Office: $54,396 worldwide
My take on Watching This Film:
Badlands is Terrence Malick’s feature film debut about a teen girl and her older boyfriend who go on a killing spree in the badlands of South Dakota and Montana, loosely based on the 1958 killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. The film stars Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen as its two leads – Holly and Kit. The film follows the pair as they meet and fall in love in their small South Dakota town before Holly’s emotionally abusive father drives Kit to a breaking point, launching a murder spree by Kit and Holly and a chase by local and federal law enforcement that leaves many dead bodies in its wake. It’s an impressive debut by the acclaimed auteur Malick that speaks to the dehumanization of violence and the dangers of sensationalizing crime.
Both Spacek and Sheen give measured but impressive performances in their leading roles. Spacek plays Holly with just the right blend of naivete, dreaminess, and aloofness to be believable as the not entirely innocent accomplice to Kit’s murders, arguably giving the more chilling performance because of her intentional lack of emotional response to the violence she constantly witnesses, having been desensitized ostensibly by her father’s maltreatment at a younger age. Likewise, though, Sheen plays Kit as this cool and slick character that also happens to have not a single bit of his life together, making for the perfect prototypical murder hobo (to use a term from certain role-playing games). It’s this deeply charismatic but also off-putting performance that sticks with you and brings the message of Malick’s film home. Together, they form the backbone of the film, offering not a critique of youth culture, as such films often did in that era, instead lamenting the loss of innocence and the dehumanization of young people in such stories rather than recognizing them as victims of their times and lives. Particularly, the film’s final act brings into focus the public hysteria and small-time celebrity that has been visited upon Holly and especially Kit as a result of their spree, and despite a marked lack of any actual comments on it, the audience is left with a sense of guilt for getting caught up in the same hysteria that the arresting officers and local governments had. It’s a really cool film that captures this desire for something to happen that every person feels at some point in their life, especially in adolescence and young adulthood, while highlighting the dangers of allowing this wanderlust to go unchecked due to a lack of investment on the part of the older generations.
Malick’s debut is carried by the chilling performances of its two leads that lend weight to the story and message that the auteur is trying to present in Badlands, earning it a memorable place among the all-time greats. Its simple and dark story might not be the most groundbreaking, but the way that everything unfolds and the visual presentation that Malick gives to the narrative keeps the film feeling unique. If you’d like to watch the film for yourself, you can currently find it to rent on most streaming platforms.
