My take on this film, anyone share the same view?

Kit and Holly were sociopaths of the type that are found everywhere any time. They stood out only because of their time and place: the myth of the snoozy Eisenhower years, a decade which in any case seems dead and false only to those with a superficial knowledge and understanding of the era. Similar personalities who emerged in more "alive and genuine" times like the 60s or 70s seemed to be less exceptional only because so much overt mayhem on a larger scale was happening.

A good film, not as great as some say but extremely well done and frightening in its depiction of the "banality of evil". Holly in particular struck me as the more psychotic of the two because she had no empathy or even much grasp of the effects of Kit's shooting people, just an emotionless cipher. Yet she was not unintelligent.

The real Charles Starkweather/Caril Fugate killing spree was much more deadly and heartless than even what's depicted in this film, which uses variations on the real pair's actual murders for most of the killings it depicts. Starkweather murdered 11 people and killed two dogs as well. (Caril Fugate's father never killed her dog, as Warren Oates does in the movie.) One victim was Caril's 2-year-old step-sister, whom Charlie strangled and stabbed to death. They did break into a rich man's house but killed the wife, the maid and the husband when he came home -- no one was spared as shown in the movie. The young couple they killed in the storm cellar had picked them up along the highway. Starkweather shot the boy and tried to rape the girl but couldn't perform, whereupon he murdered her and an apparently jealous Fugate mutilated the corpse's vaginal area. Other killings took place that were not replicated in the movie, and the ones that were depicted were worse than in the film. There is also reason to believe Fugate took part in some of the killings as well, but she got off with life.

It's curious that Malick used so many of the details of the real killers' actions for his fictionalized Kit and Holly, yet pulled back from showing the worst deeds they committed. It was almost as though he was trying to evoke some sympathy for these two maniacs. This isn't uncommon among filmmakers dealing with stories about mass murderers. Richard Brooks falsified many of the facts to evoke some sympathy for the real-life killers he depicted in his adaptation of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood in 1967.