REVIEW: Soundtrack, Natural Born Killers
- Martin Bate
Natural Born Killers is one of *the* films of recent years. Oliver Stone's direction is breathtaking - piling image upon image (at times literally!) and mixing the violent and the beautiful until the lines become blurred. Given this, you would imagine that Trent Reznor (Mr NIN) is a good choice to handle the music.....but Reznor has been sloppy.
The sheer scope of the selections is hard to fault - from 90's 'alternative' and rap through older country, folk, rock and various styles which are now conveniently grouped under the term 'world music', to more traditional soundtrack fare and a few of Reznor's own compositions (the only new one being "Burn", where Reznor appears to be quickly turning into a predictable parody of himself). This is a *very* varied album - which is both one of its strengths - the juxtaposition of styles - and its weaknesses. Most people will find *something* to hate here - for me it is Bob Dylan's nasal balladry.
One of the main selling points for the soundtrack is the fact that it samples dialogue extensively from the film to add atmosphere. Thus several tracks, notably L7's "Shitlist" and Reznor's own "Something I Can Never Have" are transformed into something *very* special - in the latter's case, into one of the most tragic and beautiful things I have heard this year.
But overall, Reznor fails to capitalize properly on the dialogue. He misses some golden pieces (including almost *all* the best bits from the second half) and mars the atmosphere by using excerpts out of chronological order and including way too much of Robert Downey Jr's supposed satire - the film's one weak link.
In addition, one of the films best musical moments - the point where Rage Against the Machine's "Bombtrack" kicks in (you'll know if you've seen it) is omitted. This was a piece just crying out to be included with its surrounding dialogue!
To top it all off, over the final few songs all connections to the film seem to peter out totally - ending with Snoop's mates The Dogg Pound, with a slight twist to the g-funk sound, but zero relevance to the film. Although maybe this is just as well given the way Dre's "The Day the Niggaz Took Over" was used. It smacked as being both racist and tokenist given its use in the film (again, if you've seen it. you'll know what I mean) by a white director and musical compiler - and I'm not the most P.C. sensitive of people!
Essentially the content is interesting at worst, and breath-taking at best, but there's just far too many niggles to detract from what could and should have been an entity as remarkable as the film itself.
