Undoubtedly the most talked about, and misunderstood film of the last decade, Oliver Stone’s visual description of how television and the media portray violence is a superb motion picture and a very important rung on the ladder of success for our favourite actor.

Not your usual road movie, Mickey and Mallory Knoxx, (played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis), go on a murder rampage through America that begins with the murder of Mallory’s parents and ends with Mickey blowing away a store worker who has just recognised him from TV.

Celebrity cop, Jack Scagnetti, (Tom. ‘Duh!’ like you didn’t know!), author of ‘Scagnetti on Scagnetti’ finally apprehends the kill spree couple outside a supermarket where they are searching for snake-bite anti-venom, to a soundtrack of L7.

Tom is superb as Scagnetti. His whole attitude and swagger screams out ‘COOL AS F#@£!’ and the character is a superb example of how celebrity and power can mess someone up. Obviously because it’s Tom, we love him, but putting that aside, we despise Jack Scagnetti.

Where as M and M grow on you throughout the film and you genuinely want them to succeed in the end, (maybe I’m the messed up one for saying that!). Scagnetti, from the start, is a complete head-case. His desire to see how it feels to kill, and then his pride as he brags lamely about having killed to Mallory, show him as being totally obsessed, impressed even, with the couple that he is attempting to destroy. While the character is amazingly good, thanks to Tom, Scagnetti himself is extremely weak.

The way Scagnetti pinpoints the shooting of his mother as his decision to become a cop, not seeing that it was probably that moment that began his obsession with serial killers and death is superb. Yet another one of the many points that the press seemed to overlook.

The film is punctuated with reports by ‘American Maniacs’’ star, Wayne Gayle, (played by Robert Downey Jr - another of my favourite actors), who, as the ultimate TV slime-ball, sees M and M build into the the ultimate Celebrity Psycho’s Vehicle for him to ride on.

Bigger than Bundy and Manson, an interview is set up between Gayle and Mickey the day before Knoxx is to be shipped off to a mental asylum for the rest of his life. The interview will go out live after the American Superbowl with the whole world watching. This in itself is amusing for the simple reason that it is just so accurate.

One of my favourite Tom Sizemore films, not so much for the movie itself, which I DO think is quite wonderful, but for the acting of each cast member. You will all probably know Tom’s story about how Oliver Stone told him that he’d be the table’s fifth leg, (Lewis, Harrelson, Downey and Jones being the other four) and that he needed to be sure that none of the legs would make the table shaky. This table is stable as a rock! Each actor is completely believable, each character possessing his/her own faults that adds to the movie. Superb.

Although shown on UK television, this film is still not available on video in Britain. My own copy was brought in New Zealand. If anybody could provide a review for the director's cut we would be extremely grateful.