KILLER ROAD MOVIES

There’s a very interesting little sub-category of movies that I really like. For want of a better tag, I’ll call them Killer Road Movies.

The polar star of this category is Bonnie And Clyde (1967) with Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunnaway as Bonnie Parker. Gene Hackman, Michael T. Pollard and Estelle Parsons complete the gang, and Denver Pyle is the lawman determined to bring them down. Gene Wilder has a small part in his first film. This groundbreaking, and hugely entertaining, film dares to glorify common criminals and to show violent death realistically. Those who are gunned down herein do not crumple prettily to the ground. They are slaughtered in slow motion with enough blood and gore to float a canoe.                             

Thelma And Louise (1991), with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, do not set out to be lawbreakers. They’re just girls who want to have fun, but their road trip turns ugly when they kill a would-be rapist. A Buddy Movie for women isn’t new, but the ideas in this one are. Is it a metaphor for the modern woman? You decide- but we can all agree it is a tremendous amount of fun.

Kalifornia (1993) is most notable for the incredible performance of Brad Pitt as a slack-jawed, low-life psychopath. He and a reluctant Juliette Lewis hook up with a writer and photographer who are doing a story on serial killers and are unaware they are riding with one. 

Terrence Malik’s Badlands (1973) features an impossibly young Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as Charles Starkweather and Mary Fugate. They leave a bloody trail across the U.S. and yet somehow manage to appeal to us, against our wills. 

Wild At Heart (1990) can be a little hard to take, but Nicholas Cage (as Sailor) and Laura Dern (as the unrelenting Lula) are convincing wildlings in this dark David Lynch film. Dianne Ladd was actually nominated for an Oscar for her part as Marietta, Lula’s overbearing mother who totally hates Sailor. Sailor thinks he’s Elvis and Lula thinks she’s Marilyn Monroe. We think they are Southern-fried trouble with a capital T. 

All of the films in this column are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups.