Midweek Mention... Badlands

Badlands

Cris: Welcome to Bad Dad's Film Review. This time, just the three of us because the oldest member of the squad is somewhere in Thailand on his way to Ko Mui.

Sidey: Dan. Looks like he's on a stag, isn't he? Yeah, he's been drinking a hell of a lot.

Reegs: drinking a lot. And allegedly

Sidey: He sent us a million photos. Um, voice calls from the sea where he is.

Cris: Yes, it's from the hammock

rubbing

Sidey: it in, um, having a great time.

Reegs: Pictures of him attempting to do, what is that? Like chin, not chin ups really, but it's a pull up.

Cris: Well, it's more like hollow long. Can you hold? Yeah, that's,

Sidey: Uh, that's like a hol, a hollow hold.

it's called?

I think

Cris: Anyway, that, yeah. Hold on.

Reegs: was for 90 seconds, he said he did 17. I think. I

Sidey: I think I could be that. Not at the moment. 'cause I really badly injured my arm in here last week. Did you? Yeah. What

Reegs: Did you? Yeah. What did you do?

Sidey: Wafting, that tea towel.

right

Reegs: at the, the moth. The moth.

Sidey: Um, and I felt like I'd done a mischief at the time, but we were like a bottle of wine in. Yeah. And then I woke up in the morning and my arm really fucking [00:01:00] sore.

Uh, and it's been, I'd say agony, but I haven't been able to sleep 'cause of it.

Reegs: that's the one that you've had a lot of problems

with

Sidey: Yeah. And I also had my flu jab in it, so it probably didn't help. Um. About to struggle on, you know, the soldier on. Yeah. Much, much like the people of Badlands. Yeah. The 1973 Terrence Malik Neo Noir is described online.

Reegs: Yeah, they do. Describe it as that. Yeah.

Sidey: I don't think it's that neo, but anyway, um, yeah, Badlands, and the reason I picked this was because I went to the multiplex this week and I watched Springsteen. Every album everywhere, all at once or something. It's a really shit title. Um, the Road to Nowhere or something.

I can't remember what it's called. Yeah. Essentially the telling of the story of the Making of Nebraska, the album. Right. And in the film, and I think in real life he watched Badlands. And was inspired by the real life story that Badlands is an inspiration of. Of Charles Starkweather.

Reegs: Yes. And

Sidey: a real [00:02:00] Paborsky Yeah.

Reegs: Um, they were the serial killers, notorious, sort of romantic serial killers, also inspired, uh,

Sidey: this not as

Reegs: born killers.

Sidey: Yeah.

And the, did the soundtrack get you?

Reegs: Oh, it was great,

Sidey: man. But I was thinking of what this is from another film.

Reegs: What was it?

Sidey: I thought I had to Google it because I was trying to work it out.

It's like a Pliny plank. Yeah. Um,

Reegs: it's James Taylor. It says here in front of me. It's got some,

Sidey: uh, I think it's inspired by or taken from another piece of music by someone else. And I was trying to work it out and I thought it was American beauty, but it's not. It's true romance. It's true romance,

Reegs: a true romance. Is it? Okay. It's, you've got the same sort of

Sidey: got the same sort of when the true romance one is. Uh, technically not. Technically is by, um. Who's the famous guy who does all the music, not John Williams,

Zimmer Frame. Yeah, it's him. But very clearly inspired by this

definitely.

Very, very clearly. Um, so it starts off, I think we've got a voiceover, haven't we? Sissy SpaceX.

Reegs: Yeah, [00:03:00] she narrat wates throughout the movie. Um, Holly often saying things that are quite divorced from what's happening on screen.

Really?

Sidey: So my miss is about halfway or three quarters of the way through is like, do you think she survives? And I'm like, she's telling us the story. So that my instinct is that yes, she probably does survive it. Yeah. Um, yeah. And we then we get to meet, uh, Martin Sheen's kit.

Reegs: Well, it opens with her telling her story that she, she's fondling a dog on the bed, if I remember correctly, and

Sidey: Does the dog die.com? Yeah.

Reegs: And, uh, she's saying how her mother died of pneumonia when she was young. And,

Sidey: uh,

perhaps her father hasn't reacted, um, hasn't adapted to life as a, as a sole parent.

Um,

Reegs: a very harsh authoritarian dad. He's a sign painter by trade. Um, and, uh, we also meet, like you said, kit, kit Caruthers, Martin Sheen, doing a great James Dean

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: she

even describes him as such, didn't she?

Reegs: Well, she's besotted by him when she meets him. [00:04:00] He's, he works on a, a garbage truck.

Sidey: I'm gonna say. Possibly not the most enthusiastic employee that they have.

Reegs: No. Although he does get quite excited when he offers his mate Cato a dollar to, um, eat the dog a collie that they find that's been thrown out.

Sidey: Yeah. Um, and then he, he's trying to sell some old boots and stuff, and then he just says, he just decides he's had enough of the day and he just walks off.

Reegs: Yeah. Just fucks off work, walks home. And I think this is when he sees her,

Sidey: he sees her, she is twirling a bat on outside the house and she's obviously.

Um, well to do 'cause it is quite a big house as I

Reegs: Yeah. In the suburbs,

Sidey: like maybe, maybe the mom had a lot of life insurance.

Reegs: Yeah. Certainly Kit comes from nowhere. It says in the plot description on Wikipedia that he was being in the Korean War, but I could only get that by inference rather than anything that's outright stated in a plot.

Sidey: I didn't, I didn't pick it up directly from the film itself.

Cris: it was a shooting that he saw such a good

Reegs: Well, certainly what he does later in terms of his tactics and stuff, but, um, Yeah.

so he, he sees her and [00:05:00] I think is immediately kind of besotted by

Sidey: in those shorts. I'm not surprised.

Reegs: She's 15, um, and looks only just 15.

And, uh, I think he, he asks her out straight away, doesn't, he says, do you wanna go for a walk with me

Sidey: Well, I see you again. He says, as he walks off and she's, she's, they do go off and then she says, well, I can't let my dad see me with you because you are fucking like in your thirties or something.

He's not

Reegs: He's 25.

Sidey: actual Martine, when he made it was 32, the act, the character is supposed to be 19, and they had. Move that up.

Reegs: No, he says he's 10 years older

Sidey: He's 25. Yeah. He was the, originally, the character supposed to be 19, which would make the age gap less creepy than

Reegs: Oh yeah. But he couldn't pull off

Cris: Yeah.

There's no

Sidey: because they wanted Martin Sheen, they had to change it around a bit. Um, so it becomes a bit more like, whoa, she's 15, dude. Yeah.

Yeah.

Reegs: All the way through.

Cris: Well done. She's 15.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. Um. Let's just get to the bit with the fucking dog murder because they, they, he takes their [00:06:00] virginity.

Reegs: He does. And she says, was that it? It says, she says that to him and he's like, yep.

Sidey: to him and he's like, yep. The most relatable bit of the film. Yeah.

Reegs: And uh, she was a bit like, I can't see what all the talking was about.

Like, he's like, yeah, well that's it. She

Sidey: still into it though. She's still super into him because a load of bad shit happens and she doesn't bat an eyelid.

Reegs: he says about her that she's not full of giggles, you know, she's like a woman is what he says about her. But she is

Sidey: I'd say that the voiceover, the way they do the voiceover makes her sound every bit for a 15-year-old.

Reegs: Yeah. 'cause she's telling all of this as if it's a fairy tale. Yeah. Um,

Sidey: and so yeah, of course when she starts spending more time, we see them like under the bleachers, you know, snogging and doing that stuff.

And eventually her dad's gonna get wind of this and he's, he knows this guy's like, not what he intends for his daughter. Um, and so the punishment that he dishes out to her is to fucking shoot her dog. Yeah. And you're thinking, what the fuck?

Cris: Yeah.

What kind of punishment is that? Well, I don't,

Sidey: what do you expect the reaction to be?

You know, telling [00:07:00] off, they might be a bit rebellious about that, but fucking executing her pet,

Reegs: she doesn't like it, but she's not distraught, is she?

Because

Sidey: No. Well, I think it just, it just pushes her into

Reegs: what happens

Sidey: soon as he says, let's fuck off. She's like, well, yeah, okay. My dog's dead, so I might as well.

Reegs: Yeah. Um, he turns up at the house one day Kit, doesn't he? When Nate, she's gone off for a clarinet lesson, I think, and, uh,

Sidey: yeah, that's one of the other PAs. And not to play the piano anymore, but to play the oboe or

Reegs: Yeah.

So bizarre. yeah, He's waiting at home and the guy dad comes in. He's brilliantly framed by the window. By the way, this movie looks amazing considering it was made for Fuck All, like all it's the. Composition.

Sidey: the malata

like tidy. Yeah.

Reegs: Um, so he's framed against the window and he's like, oh, I've got a gun, sir.

Sidey: Very polite. Yeah.

Reegs: He sort of lets him know and don't, but he makes a break for it. The dad to go and call the police. I think he's

Sidey: it's all very calm and I don't think he ever believes, one second that Kit is gonna shoot him.

Reegs: No. And Holly's there as well, so she's observing all this

Sidey: this is where [00:08:00] she seems really young because.

They go downstairs and he just fucking shoots him

Reegs: shoots him in the back, doesn't he? As he is going to go to the wards, the

Sidey: Yeah. And then he's clearly dead. And she's like, oh, what? Like what, what sort of condition is he in? Do we think we need a doctor? And

Reegs: think he, he says, I don't think he needs a doctor, is what he says.

Um.

Sidey: And

Reegs: And she's like, is he gonna be all right? Mm. Yeah. As he's carrying the body downstairs and um,

Cris: He'll be all right.

Reegs: Yeah. And he records a, um, a suicide note on some vinyl that you could just go and get yourself. You could go in recording booth and record yourself direct onto vinyl. Yeah. And he leaves a sort of suicide note saying, oh, we killed ourselves with the dad.

Sidey: She, she explains that in the voice evidently says he left it playing on repeat so that they would hear it when they come, uh, burns the house down, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: Um, and they run off. And, uh, we get some shots of the, like bayou or whatever it is. I'm not entirely a hundred percent sure where they are, but it's like river

Cris: in the swamp somewhere. No, that's how it looks like to me.

Reegs: Yeah. And they set up for a little while in a kind of Robinson [00:09:00] Cruso style,

Cris: Well, yeah, because they said that it's like if it's rainy season, it's gonna be, we have to be above ground or

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: But this wasn't just like a shitty tree house. This was full on. Fucking like had infrastructure and everything.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's quite a lot of, um, construction there. Yeah. Yeah. So he could graft if he wanted to. You know, I've seen Treehouse Masters on Discovery Channel. Like he could have done that for a living done that instead of going down this life of crime. What a mistake.

Cris: Well, he also liked to shoot people. Right? So

Sidey: pretty good at, he's good at that as well, to be fair.

Cris: yeah. That's the other talent.

Sidey: The guys come after him, don't they?

they, well

Reegs: there are three guys there. I, I wasn't whether completely sure whether they, he later will say to her that they were bounty hunters and he heard them say their name, which he definitely didn't or is not on screen.

I didn't know whether these guys were just three hunters that were in the, like

Sidey: it's not, it's not like some posse from the wild west. No. Out for blood.

Reegs: Yeah. But he has like embedded himself, he's got like trap doors in the [00:10:00] floor and a gun that he's got

Sidey: Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a probably a shit load of paranoia because he has murdered someone in cold blood.

Yeah. So there's probably some, some stuff going on there. And like you say, he's got, um, a little trap door where he's camouflaged underground and as they walk past, he just shouts, they turn around, bang, bang, uh, runs after the third man bang. Now we've got four bodies.

Reegs: And he relays it all to sissy SpaceX, who just buys it all when he says, oh, you know, they were coming to get us and it was, you know, them or us.

That sort of

Sidey: thing.

Yeah.

there's

like all the way through both him and her, like there's no hysteria.

Reegs: No,

Sidey: she never loses it. She just gets bored of it, I think.

Reegs: Yeah. She's psychotically calm,

Sidey: Yeah. Isn't she? Well, he, I think he's, he's mega. He's like, you know, when Hannibal Lector loses it and his heartbeat never changes, he's like that.

He, you know, you get nothing from him other than it's bang, bang onto the next scenario. You know? He's not like panic after the kill. Like, oh my God, what have we done?

Cris: Well, it's also everything is calculated, [00:11:00] right? So everything he does is calculated. He doesn't really get surprised because he's prepared, he prepares for these guys. Were the first people that came, come in first with, after that, when they go to whatever the fuck, they go in the sticks in the fields.

Yeah, it is the same. He's ready for every, all these little,

Sidey: Do you think he just knows how it's gonna play out? Eventually. It's gotta come to a head and he is kind of

Reegs: And he's gonna kill people and move on. Yeah. Yeah. And it is gonna escalate.

They get, they start to become fairly notorious, don't they? And, uh, their story becomes kind of widely known.

Sidey: She just drops in thenar in the narration that he. People were start, people got wind that he wanted to rob a bank.

Reegs: Yeah. Um,

Sidey: Um,

Reegs: and they show you, they brought the national guardian, all these fucking hicks getting bust in with their shotguns in the back of like, um, Utes or wagons or whatever being taken to protect this bank.

And they're still out in the middle of the Badlands. Um, yeah, really silly. Uh, but they do move what they eventually, um. Moved to this rich person's house. I can't remember the character's name, the lady, it's

Sidey: called Rich Guy, [00:12:00] isn't he

Reegs: The waitress. The waitress, the housekeeper is deaf when she opens the door and he, he's like giving this big spiel about how he's here for the day and he tries to dress up, doesn't

he Yeah.

Um, so they take him hostage and live there for, I wasn't sure how long, but.

Sidey: Again, they just, they calm, they say to him, look, we're just gonna stay here for a little while. And the guy, guy like obviously knows who they are. I think at this point,

Reegs: And he's got a g waving a gun around.

Sidey: doesn't want ruffle any further.

So he just is like, okay, just do what you need to do. Yeah. Um, yeah. And they just, it's just really calm. They just live there kind of hiding, but they're not like super secretive either.

Reegs: And we missed, I missed, didn't I? We before all that they go to stay with Cato as well. The guy, the friend from the beginning.

Sidey: He gets fucking execute.

Reegs: Yeah, he, this bit is not confusingly short, but it's a bit, sort of ambiguous about exactly what Cato's doing.

He's a bit like, oh, I'm just going to go,

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: but, and then Martin Sheen's character thinks basically, [00:13:00] oh, he's going to the police and shoots him in the back as he is running away. I can't remember again what does, 'cause I didn't have time to do preparation at all this week. But, uh, what he si what he says to sissy SpaceX to smooth it all over about why

Sidey: could say anything though because. She's not freaking out. She's, she's just accepting it. She's still,

Reegs: about how kind of in love they

Sidey: Yeah. Um, although we don't, there's, there's no time for it. But there's no real relationship there. No. It's a sort of weird infatuation. Um, but not based on anything.

Reegs: think maybe addicted to the sort of events of the movie now as well.

Like the craziness.

Sidey: Yeah. Um, so they're, they're at Rich Man's

Reegs: Yeah.

They get, they go away from his, they go out to some oil,

Sidey: Do they kill him?

Reegs: Yeah. Uh, no. He is left alive. The, uh,

Cris: They don't, they don't show any shit. They just kind of leave

Reegs: just leave. Yeah.

Sidey: He's a lucky dude.

Reegs: and they escape again. They go off and they find, they come across, they're, uh, siphoning oil and petrol from those like

Sidey: things that

Reegs: that they [00:14:00] find, don't they?

And then she's basically like in the middle of a sort of part where the law enforcement comes near them and it's starting to get a bit hairy. She's basically like in a sentence, decides I'm bored of him now. Yeah. Uh, I, I don't really want this anymore.

Sidey: Yeah. It's pretty matter of fact. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly like that.

She's, it's like,

Reegs: like, you know, I'm tired of life

Sidey: It, it's a real weird vibe because then she goes, he kind of accepts it. Yeah. He says, well go over there because it's gonna like kick off. Um, 'cause he is exchanging gunfire then with the. The law.

Reegs: They turn up in a helicopter, don't they?

Sidey: Yeah, he, that guy just fucking runs towards him and gets

Reegs: He runs

straight outta the helicopter and gets shot instantly, don't he?

Sidey: Um, he doesn't miss much, does he kick? He is a fucking sharpshooter.

Reegs: Yeah. And then we get a great chase. This was one of my favorite images of the movie because you've got that big blue sky and the two cars like barreling along with all the dust behind them as they go. It was such a great shot.

Cris: it's great cars as well.

Yeah. Either the,

Sidey: they,

Reegs: they're smacking into [00:15:00] each other as they drive as well.

Sidey: he turns one way. They, they go to go after him, almost flip the car. He drives off and he just stops and he is like, do you know what? Fuck it. It surrenders.

Reegs: Yeah. it. is basically, he, he just parks the car up, doesn't he? He starts building this little thing out of stones. Yeah.

Sidey: he balance like rocks on

Reegs: 'cause he's, he wants to now play up his notoriety, doesn't he? 'cause he's like, oh, you can say that's the spot where you caught me. Right here. Right here. He saying, and they're treating him. The cops are now treating him with a kind of celebrity type reverence to him. They're calling him Kit and they're,

Sidey: there's no police brutality. You know, like you hear about just. Take him away and then,

Reegs: well later when he is, they've all the law enforcement around him, he stood on that plane on the wing of a plane and he's going, here's my comb. Yay.

Sidey: Yeah, yeah. He is giving out, giving out trinkets.

Reegs: little, yeah, you can take this, you can take that. And they're all asking him questions like, what's your favorite movie?

Or whatever. And

Sidey: yeah, it's Bananas Singer. And then

Reegs: Fisher.

Cris: like the, it's like the Pink Panther all over again. Yeah.

Sidey: Sissy, SpaceX, uh, Holly's narration then [00:16:00] explains that, um. He is given the death penalty. Yeah. Uh, I think three or four months later or something like that, he was executed.

Reegs: We already know that going into the last scene when he goes off, he's being taken off again in the helicopter, isn't he?

And he says, um, the guy says to him, the deputy says something like, oh, you are one of a kind kit. And he says, you think they'll take that into consideration? That's what he says back to him. And uh, but you know, it's got like a real sardonic humor to it. 'cause you know he's gonna fucking die.

Sidey: Deservedly

Reegs: Deservedly.

Sidey: Um, that,

Reegs: And then she just talks in narration that she married the defense lawyer's son. Yeah.

Sidey: Um,

Cris: which is definitely closer to her age. Right. You would hope,

Sidey: I guess she kind of played it, that she was sort of his hostage take along and stuff. And, and

why was watching Today is last week tonight, and that this week is all about felony murder.

So if you are [00:17:00] present, if you are a party to a crime where someone else has been killed,

Reegs: yeah.

Sidey: you, you can get, you would be guilty of murder. So you don't even have to be

Cris: by association.

Sidey: you're the getaway driver of a bank robbery Yeah. And someone,

Reegs: killed on that.

Sidey: the bank is killed. You as, as being party attack.

Crime will be, you can be tried for murder. Okay. And the, the example that on the show

Reegs: part of a conspiracy that caused

Sidey: a guy, there's a guy in America doing life without parole because he lent his flatmate, his car keys on knowing that that car was being used in a burglary where someone went inside the house and killed someone, the resident of that house, unknowing.

So because he had lent the car keys, um, he was found guilty and is serving life without parole. That so for her in Holly, in the film, I guess they didn't have, maybe it's state by state different, I dunno. But, um, and it's, well this is sort of based, this is inspired by real people. Mm-hmm. But her not [00:18:00] being guilty of any crime seems a stretch to me.

Cris: I think you have to take into consideration that she's a minor. Right. So I, I think you would get that because she's basically a child that has been taken by when you're that young and it's such a big difference.

You can't say

Reegs: I think that would be mitigation.

I agree. But still she is shown to be coldly complicit, I think in what's happening. She, she sticks by him until she's bored of him, basically. Yeah. Um,

Sidey: there's still juvenile detention and stuff, you know, you still get put away, but, um, anyway, she's not, and she married a fucking lawyer, so

seems like she

Cris: so not in 1973.

Sidey: wonder if they got another dog. I

Reegs: I dunno. I don't know, but good, um, good performances.

Sissy Spacer is great in this with the sort of dreamlike narration, um, and very understated performance. And then Martin Sheen doing obviously an on purpose James Dean Um, but he's very charismatic in

Cris: He looks good.

Reegs: He looks good. He looks good,

Cris: Double

Sidey: denim movie. He is looking strong with the double denim.

Reegs: Um, and the movie itself is a joy to [00:19:00] look at.

Sidey: It's really good. It's a weird like morality to it in that you know, everyone.

Reegs: it's the perverted American dream, isn't it? You know?

Sidey: um, uh, Charlie and Emilio are in it. they? Yeah, they're, they're two little kids under a lamppost at one point. Oh, okay.

It was probably bring your kids to school day to workday or whatever. Um. So they're in there. That's nice. Um, but yeah, Charles Starkweather is the real dude. Mm-hmm. Um, and if you listen to Nebraska or just read up about him, you find out what he did. And it's the, the album Nebraska inspired by his, um, crimes.

So, yeah. Um, this is, well, I read that it cost 450 grand to make mm-hmm.

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Sidey: Seemed like a massive flop even at that amount of money. Yeah. But I don't believe the box office take that is published on the interwebs. Because it says 53 grand, and I just can't accept that as

Reegs: become a big cult. Yeah. Following and, you know, widely acclaimed as well. And Terrence Malick went on to do loads of other good [00:20:00] stuff.

Um,

Sidey: Warner Brothers picked it up, um, for a million dollars later on down the line and released it as a double bill with Blazing Saddles.

Reegs: Nice.

Sidey: Kind of like a Heimer, but Yeah. Way less successful.

Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Um, so yeah. Good. I, I give it strong. Recommend.

Cris: Yeah. Strong,