Oliver Stone Presents Natural Born Killers Director's Cut

Available in wide-screen or pan-and-scan versions, this uncut edition of Stone's blistering broadside aimed at the media's fascination with murderers reinstates about three minutes of footage removed to secure an R rating — shots of blood spurting against walls and assorted boots and billy clubs pummeling murder-spree malcontents Mickey and Mallory (the superbly showcased Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis). It's debatable whether excising this sometimes sickening footage rendered the R-rated version more incendiary, as Stone argues here in a taped introduction, by making grisly scenes less discomfiting. Still, this two-tape collection, Oliver Stone Presents Natural Born Killers Director's Cut, is inarguably a home-viewing event, supplemented by an ingeniously edited making-of documentary and extended outtakes, including a riotous scene of bodybuilding brothers thanking Mickey and Mallory for hacking off their limbs. It's quintessential Stone: overpumped, overblown, and dazzlingly cinematic. A-

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• DVD Review Natural Born Killers (Jan 25, 2000) | Marc Bernardin