He wanted to die with me and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms. A young couple goes on a Midwest crime spree in Terrence Malicks hypnotically assured debut feature, based on the 1950s Starkweather-Fugate murders. Fancying himself a rebel like James Dean, twentysomething Kit (Martin Sheen) takes off with teen baton-twirler Holly (Sissy Spacek) after shooting her father (Warren Oates) when he tries to split the pair up. Once bounty hunters discover their riverside hiding place, Kit and Holly head towards Saskatchewan, leaving dead bodies in their wake. As the Law closes in, however, Holly gives herself up -- but Kit doesnt hold it against her, as he basks in his new status as a momentary folk hero. Inaugurating the use of voiceover narration that he would continue in Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick juxtaposes Hollys flat readings of her flowery romance novel diary prose with the banal and surreal details of their journey. Singularly inarticulate with each other, Kit and Holly are more intrigued by mythic celebrity gestures, as Holly peruses her fan magazines and Kit commemorates key moments before orchestrating a properly dramatic capture for himself (complete with the right hat). The sublime visuals lend a dreamlike beauty to the couples trip even as their actions are treated casually; Malick neither glamorizes Kit and Holly nor consigns them to the bloody end of their fame-fixated predecessors in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). With the couples opaque dialogue and Hollys fanzine dream narration, Malick further denies an easy explanation for their crimes. Made for under $500,000, Badlands debuted at the 1973 New York Film Festival, along with Martin Scorseses Mean Streets, and was released within months of two other outlaw couple road movies, Steven Spielbergs The Sugarland Express and Robert Altmans Thieves Like Us. Although Badlands did not make an impression at the box office, its pictorial splendor and cool yet disquieting narrative established Malick as one of the most compelling artists to come out of early 70s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide