Entertaining but not his best

Rating: 7/10 (23 August 2009)

I am a huge QT fan so went expecting a lot. My short take is that if you want something as fresh as Pulp Fiction or as eye popping as Kill Bill you will be disappointed. This film plods painfully along in the first half, setting up the later story but not in a slick way like his earlier work. It almost stumbles through the usual QT violence (although less gratuitously than you might expect from the trailers) before flowing nicely for the last half hour. It is like the first half of the film was edited by a student. Brad Pitt is a caricature and most of his band of merry men are not very well developed. The villain is maybe the best fleshed out and most interesting. Not to say Pitt isn't good because you want to laugh every time he opens his mouth and he looks like he's having fun. Not bad by any means but QT and Brad Pitt together set the bar pretty high and I don't think they quite reach it. Pitt's Italian dialogue is memorable.