Too much of everything

Memorable, crazy movie

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

In 1990 David Lynch was an all time career peak. His television show "Twin Peaks" had the greatest reviews of all time for a television show. The show debut in April. One month later "Wild at Heart" would win the Canne Film Festival however not everyone loved this film and there seem to be many boo's when it was announced that it did win. It easy to see why this film had such a polarizing effect. It is a very violent and very sexual. It pushes the limits on what content should be allowed in a "R RATED FILM" before it is given a more restricted NC- 17 rating. "Wild at Heart" is a film that you won't forget once you see it. It is one of those where most people will "Love" or "Hate". Now I was and still am a "Twin Peaks" fan. I was looking forward to seeing this film. However this film I do not love. To me it pushed the envelope way too far. If a scene was violent it was graphic in sexual content. Here is the story:In this film After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Lula's mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), desperate to keep them apart, hires a hit man to kill Sailor.If this film was shorter or "Toned down" I might have enjoyed it more. However even now I am very hesitant to watch it. If you can get through the first 15 minutes and then you will be okay. If you find it too much then you might want to know it only gets more graphic. Not the the Best David Lynch Film. However if you have a great sound system then put this on and pump up the volume!

Yawn.I had such high expectations for this movie since it's a Lynch and the premise sounds seriously bad ass. But it just isn't. 80% of this movie is just stupid dialogue (from a car), unnecessary sex scenes and Nicholas Cage being an awful actor. I was seriously looking forward to Bobby Peru and even he was a let down.As the title suggests, I did stop watching this movie prematurely. There was about 30 minutes left which came as a major surprise to me since there had been little to no build up at all and the movie was about to end.Creepy characters speaking nonsense (seriously, what the hell are the Cajuns even talking about?) does not make for a compelling movie. A swing and a miss from Lynch.

I cannot believe this movie has over a 7 rating on IMDb. I am a huge David Lynch fan, I have enjoyed literally everything in the man's catalogue prior to watching Wild at Heart. This is the last film of Lynch's that I watched (Yes, I even watched the David Lynch short film compilation), and now I know why I had never heard of Wild at Heart. To start off, the acting in this movie is absolutely the worst of any Lynch film, and it has to be the worst of all the movies rated 7+. The accents of the main characters are atrocious and unnecessary. It would almost be passable if the movie didn't explicitly state they were in NC/SC at the beginning of the movie. Places where these accents wouldn't show up on their best day. From the very first scene where Nick Cage fights a man.. to the very last where he is singing a song, there isn't a single line of dialogue spoken by any character that seemed convincing or natural. This movie rival's M Night Shyamalans' The Happening in so many ways... minus all the weird sex scenes, which Wild at Heart has in spades. It has so many unnecessary sex scenes that by the middle of the film, I was starting to be surprised if there wasn't some random naked person in a scene. This entire production screams B-Movie. And by all accounts, it is one. It is "B-Movie," presented by David Lynch.Now, let's get into the story elements. First, the story is nonsense, and I don't mean in the "leave you guessing" way of other Lynch films. This story from top to bottom is uneventful, forgettable, and long. There are so many blatant Wizard of Oz references throughout the film, that I started to ask myself "why didn't Lynch just make an Oz remake." It would be different if there were subtle similarities between the movies, close associations, or sparse references. However, this movie constantly hits you over the head, screaming "Hey, remember Wizard of Oz, wasn't that movie awesome, sorry this one isn't so good!" And that is somewhat the overall problem. There was nothing subtle about this film. Every single message it tried to convey was so over the top and obvious, every single scene was either pointless or it was entirely predictable.Lastly, the technical issues. Oh boy.. the sound editing. This movie suffered so much from poor sound editing. There were many times where quiet conversations were going on, and then sudden loud guitar riffs would start. These were so loud it pulled me out of the movie each time it happened. The cinematography was decent, which is why I gave this movie a 3. But, sadly, this is the only positive Wild at Heart has to offer, and it doesn't come close to redeeming it.If it was on record that this movie was intentionally bad, that Lynch wanted to make a B-movie, then I would say this was a success. I would almost say that it is worth a watch, knowing you are going to watch a bad movie. However, this is not the case, and it fully upsets me that this movie is so praised with all of it's glaring flaws. I mean, movies couldn't have been that bad in 1990 to consider this one a triumph at Cannes.

First off, Cage and Dern did a great job keeping this sleazy pile going on. But their performances, however good, couldn't rectify what was essentially an evil exploitative movie. First off, I don't care about symbolism for its own sake, especially when symbolism is used to elevate trash intellectually. Pop culture references are a total bore and cop out, yeah yeah, Elvis & the Wizard of Oz, too heavy! But to the movie's credit, it CREATED the themes and styles that permeated the 90s and the early 2000s that I hated. Weird characters for weirdness sake Lots of fire & red Patronizing Southern and Western themes used to mock said cultures Stylized violence and villainy Elvis, omg, can you get any more tacky? Tacky retro styles like old T-Birds, snake skin jackets, ballroom settings for what? Road movies through the same South and West derided earlier Road movies of young lovers who aren't as wicked as the scum who are chasing them. The young lovers are actually almost noble. Lots of steaming hot sex with beautiful people. Also too much cigarette smoking, like some high school rebellion thing from the 1950s. Is that supposed to be risqué? I hate cigs! Relentlessly exploiting disabled, disfigured, mentally ill characters just to keep it all so weird. Don't get me wrong, handicapped people don't have to be glorified or honored all the time, but in here they were just there for atmosphere The relentless mockery and denigration of the family. The movies that use some of these elements are legion but two movies use this as a template, "True Romance" and "Natural Born Killers". But 1000s of cheaper indies like "Way of the Gun", or "Arizona Dream" borrow the style elements almost verbatim. Tarantino's cynically used these elements in his movies too, but of course, he added his own distinctive touches.So in that respect, we can give this movie plaudits, like the original Road Warrior, in creating a whole genre, a dubious one.