Review
After watching this half a dozen times with a biased antiTarantino "what the heck is so great about this guy anyway" view(which as most anyone watching any film with that view and a fair bit of selfknowledge will tell you is a rather fruitless practice in pointlessness... if you've decided you're not going to like it there's very little reason to think that you will no matter how good it is you need an open mind) I finally decided to give it a fair hearing... and I saw it for what it is. An unusual film at least for its time. A stylish film full of cool dialog cinematography editing and music. The whole thing comes together perfectly and is very short of creating a sublime film experience. The plot is excellently written and told. The pace is perfect. I wasn't bored for a second nor did I ever really want it to move faster or slower. The cinematography is magnificent and incredibly wellintegrated. Pans dolly trips and lest we forget the stationary shots... all perfectly used. Very stylized. The acting is topnotch allround. With most of the cast being name actors this is no surprise but they really do shine. Madsen Buscemi Keitel Roth... all incredible. The one role that had less than good... well let's be honest it had rather awful acting. I'm speaking of course of Tarantino's character. Now don't get me wrong in From Dusk Till Dawn this man did great. But just about any other time I've seen him act he just doesn't seem to have the first clue. Being a filmmaker myself(albeit on somewhat of a smaller scale than Quentin) I can relate to wanting to cast yourself in a role... but sometimes you just need to face up to the facts and admit it if you can't act. Still that is a minor complaint. Another one might be that there are at least two fairly big characters that seem completely and entirely expendable... they had no real role in the action and could very very easily have been cut with no real loss to the overall product. I won't name them here but anyone who's seen the film will know who I'm talking about. All the characters however are wellwritten and their actions credible. Tarantino knows his stuff when it comes to writing... something that also shows in the dialog which although somewhat drawnout at times is exceptional. Welldelivered too. When it comes to direction he shows how talented he is as well. The film is very well put together. The editing is great with the nonlinear timeline telling the story far better than a "regular" film ever could. One of the many Tarantinofans in fact the very person who originally talked me into watching this film once told me that he had heard of someone editing films with such timelines this Pulp Fiction Memento etc. so that their timelines were perfectly linear. I'm sorry I entirely respect their right to do such a thing... and I won't claim that their doing so has less artistic value than the original films in any way... but I refuse to watch that. A big part of this being so welltold lies in the timeline. Also I'm a firm believer of watching something the way the makers intended it. Don't edit don't censor don't make your own version and pass it off as anything but just that... your own version and not the original. Sorry rant over. Finally I just need to comment on the music... the soundtrack of this is just great. Tarantino collected so many amazing 70's tunes for this film and used them great. All in all just a really really good film. Very little keeps this from being a perfect ten most of which I've covered here. I recommend this to anyone who can stomach the violence and who likes their films with a side of style. 810