I hesitated before writing this review, because *everyone* seems to think this movie is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Personally, I thought it was deadly dull, and the characters unmotivated cardboard cutouts who have nothing in common with real human beings.
I also object to Malick's fundamental dishonesty. In his desperate desire to say something Real And Meaningful (in other words, arrogant and sophomoric) about the horrible 1950s, he uses Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate as an emblem of alienation in Ike's Amerika, while minimizing the actual crimes they committed. (Among other things, Starkweather murdered Fugate's two-year-old sister by ramming a rifle muzzle down her throat until she choked to death. He also sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl before he and Fugate murdered and mutilated her. Neither of these crimes is so much as alluded to in the film, because The Message is too important to be sullied by mere truth.)
So am I so out of touch?
No. It's everyone else who is wrong.
Personally, I thought it was deadly dull, and the characters unmotivated cardboard cutouts who have nothing in common with real human beings.
I also object to Malick's fundamental dishonesty. In his desperate desire to say something Real And Meaningful (in other words, arrogant and sophomoric) about the horrible 1950s, he uses Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate as an emblem of alienation in Ike's Amerika, while minimizing the actual crimes they committed. (Among other things, Starkweather murdered Fugate's two-year-old sister by ramming a rifle muzzle down her throat until she choked to death. He also sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl before he and Fugate murdered and mutilated her. Neither of these crimes is so much as alluded to in the film, because The Message is too important to be sullied by mere truth.)
So am I so out of touch?
No. It's everyone else who is wrong.