This is the last one I'm gonna do. Because it's very rare for me to not understand why a popular movie is liked.
You'd think being a fan of extreme violence, super stylish direction, Tarantino, Harrison and Oliver Stone's earlier films, I would have loved this. But I find it very repulsive.
I'd like to think I'm a pretty sick bastard with a dark and twisted imagination, but this movie surpasses even my limit. It's just an onslaught of shocking and depressing imagery hiding under the pretense of being thought provoking satire, but it doesn't really explore these issues it apparrently satirizes, it's excessive to the extreme. I like exploitation films, but this one is so pretentious.
I could excuse all that if it was entertaining, but it's not, except for Robert Downey Jr who is pretty funny as a sensational journalist. It's a devestating mess that leaves nothing in it's path but hatred and destruction. And I say that as someone who considers himself a misanthropist and pessimist, so in other words, it's just way too much. It tries to be as offensive as possible, and if that was it's primary goal then I guess I could call it a success.
The film satirizes the media for making celebrities and iconic figures out of pyscho killers, which is a great concept, but the big problem is that the film mixes the message by seemingly doing exactly what it's satirizing, and romanticizing these characters and asking us to care about them inspite of being so despicable and evil.
It would be fine if the film chose one or the other but it can't be both. Because of this it's really hard to understand what Stone was trying to say with this film, or if he even has anything to say at all, but it's too disturbing to warrant a second viewing to try and find out.
Usually anything Tarantino touches turns to gold, but Stone altered the script and made a mess out of it, so it's no surprise Tarantino disowned it.