Make no mistake: Kit (Sheen) – channeling James Dean with every fiber of his being – is a piece of shit. A rapist, kidnapper, professional deadbeat. Naturally, he’s also a murderer many times over. Vain from infancy, there isn’t a con he hasn’t considered, nor a person he hasn’t lied to. Even the romantic side of him – hitting the road in that All American tradition – is less about exploration than simply a ploy to elude capture. And as a cherry on top, he’s barnyard stupid in just the way you’d expect from South Dakota, circa the time of your choosing. He’s the sort of man who makes pious, shut-up-and-listen proclamations for an audience of one, presuming his words will somehow leak out and capture a nation. They will not. Still, he’s full of the kind of faux wisdom one acquires after a lifetime of ignoring convention. And laws. Or anything that even partially considers the hopes and dreams of others. Selfish, yes, to a degree that would set the standard evermore.
And yet, I can’t help but like the guy. I realize that if he were within earshot, he’d be looking to take something off my hands, up to and including my life, but I refuse to go all in against anyone who shoots a football because he believes it’s taking up too much room in the car. I could swoon over that bit of madness alone, but there’s more. Much more. An entire adventure’s worth, culminating in an act of savagery that sets new standards for heartlessness, yet also reveals more about a character than just about any scene ever filmed. Consider this: you suspect your buddy is about to rat you out. He isn’t jogging away from your weird ass for his health, after all. You go way back, yes, but there is that reward money. Motherfucker about to sell me down the river. So you shoot him. Right through the gut. He’s mortally wounded, but he manages to stumble back to his ramshackle abode. Are there shouts of recrimination? Tears? WTF accusations? Not a one. Silence reigns. And as that wounded man drags his heap closer to the entrance, the unimaginable occurs. An action so out of step with what just happened before, it takes on an unparalleled grandeur.
Yes, Kit holds the door. Like a gentleman. For the man he just shot. An act so sweet, so kind, so beautiful, we have to make sure a different movie wasn’t spliced in by mistake. Concern, following an act of wanton violence. One that quickly turns to murder because this man no longer has a working liver. And his kidneys are surely next. The dialogue between Kit and his equally maniacal companion (Holly) affirms the incongruity:
Holly: “How’s he doin’?”
Kit: “I got him in the stomach.”
Holly: “Is he upset?”
Kit: “He didn’t say nothing to me about it.”
Dialogue that spare, that insightful, is just the sort of poetry vital enough to restore one’s faith in the universe. Send a man to church. Reduce one to tears for the sheer beauty of all creation. Thirty years ago, when I first heard it, I roared for an hour. Twenty viewings later, I still cackle. Nothing put to paper has ever been better. One man, one character, explained in full. We even learn a hell of a lot about Holly, just for good measure. The movie before and after this moment in time could disappear forever, and we’d still know. Just for writing it, I want to hug Terrence Malick and never let go. A psychopath with aw-shucks manners. No one outside of the 1970’s would have dared.
The nuttiest of nutshells, right there for our admiration. Badlands, the full piece, is a glorious, unsparing examination of celebrity and our national obsession with the reprehensible, but for me, it’s always been about this one act. A cowardly madman who shoots blindly into a storm cellar because, while wanting others to die, he also lacks the sack to look anyone in the eye. Spree killing, all for the act itself, is one of the great hobbies of our demented people, but few ever gives us a glimpse of anything resembling humanity. We shoot, stab, strangle, and carve, and are all smiles afterwards. Full of braggadocio. None of us, after the act, exhibit tenderness for chrissakes, whether wiping a brow or stroking a cheek while some poor sap meets their maker. And no one, until 1973, was ever seen clearing the path for a stuck pig staggering towards oblivion. I mean, the man is dying, he shouldn’t have to open the damn door himself.
So why, pray tell, is Kit a Man of Consequence? It’s enough just to be different in an age of uniformity, but more to the point, this is true evil as we want it to be. Unpredictable, inscrutable, complex. It’s like finding out the subliterate lummox who tormented you in high school became a physics professor. Fine, Kit also dared someone to eat a dog for a dollar. And promised a teenager he’d buy her a big juicy steak after a summer of serial killing. But he’s also the kind of man who inspired his sweetheart to say this:
“Kit was glad to leave South Dakota behind and cursed its name. He said that if the Communists ever dropped the atomic bomb, he wished they’d put it right in the middle of Rapid City.”
Demented? Yes. Batshit nonsense? Certainly. Hysterically illuminating, and not entirely unreasonable? You bet your ass. And if you’re going to be sent to the hospital in this life, it’s best to have it done by someone just crazy enough to pay your bill.
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