Wild at Heart is that guy at the party that has a joke that is genuinely funny, hilarious, in fact, but then repeats that joke over and over to everyone, until you just with he would go home. This movie would excellent at 70 or 80 minuets, but there's just not enough material here to stretch it out to two hours.
The movie is a comedy, which is surprising considering the fact that it's directed by David Lynch, who is not generally known as being a wocka wocka kind of guy. But it's very funny indeed, which is why it's a shame it runs out of petrol in the second half.
It's based on a novel by Barry Gifford, which I have not read, but assume to be an earnest telling of the odyssey of two rouge outlaws through the American west. Actually, I should say one rouge outlaw- the woman hasn't done anything illegal, but is being pursued by agents from her mother (Diane Ladd), who doesn't want her hanging around her ruffian boyfriend. The lovers are Sailor (Nicolas Cage), who acts like he's Elvis, and Lula (Laura Dern), a waif-like damsel who attracts creepy guys who get beat up by Sailor.
Anyway, Lynch takes standard material that we've seen in shitty road movies and Elvis vehicles (sorry about the pun) and mocks then taking their ridiculousness to the natural conclusion. My favorite scene in the film involves the two looking for a song one the radio and after finding a station playing "their song" jumping out of the car and yelling with ecstatic glee. Maybe you had to be there.
Because this is a Lynch film we also get some really weird violence (much of it delivered by an unrecognizable Willem Dafoe), and plenty of violence, some of which (a flashback where a teenage Lula is raped by uncle) is played for real. There is an odd dichotomy in the film between the intentional artifice of the rest of the material and the real pain that Lula has to endure that is interesting but doesn't really go anywhere. There are also too many scenes with Ladd as Lula's mother that come off as repetitious and unnecessary.
But the movie's biggest problem is a very slow stretch that starts around the 60 minute mark. The movie's humor has basically run its course by this point- the one joke is not funny anymore. But the movie slows way down and continues through some endless scenes. By the time the movie starts to pick up again (when Cage and Dafoe team up) I had been really, really bored for some time.
Although it has its strong points, Wild at Heart is no Blue Velvet or The Elephant Man. It is an example of what editing can do for a movie- this would be a nutritious film if the fat could be trimmed.
Wild at Heart (1990)