Yet another disappointment from the genius...

Rating: 5/10 (4 September 2009)

I will always be one of the first to admit that Quentin Tarantino is a one of a kind, the king of using every day, boring conversation to create gripping and comical situations. However, yet again i come away from watching his latest movie with a sense of wanting.
Reservoir Dogs was his first film i watched, shortly followed by Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. These remain to be my favourite Tarantino movies. Since then i feel as though he has been lacking that special formula to create yet another masterpiece.
Firstly, the most obvious change from, in my opinion, his best films is the violence. Tarantino still remains to be the only director to make a torture scene with the removal of one's ear, or the blowing off of a man's head in a car funny. Yet in his latest movie, i found myself cringing at the all-intensive violence (an example being a Nazi having his head beaten and cracked open like a watermelon with a baseball bat.) Too many times did i lose myself in the violence that i momentarily forgot that i was watching a film. I didn't pay to watch Saw IV after-all.
Another downfall of his latest 'epic' are the acting performances. Brilliant casting was what created strikingly good scene after strikingly good scene. Whoever knew John Travolta could pull off such a career defining performance? Or Michael Madsen with his sickening yet brilliant roll as Mr.Blonde? Who on earth will ever say 'waht' to Samuel L.Jackson? Yet in this movie, Brad Pitt is, to be frank, dreadful. I am genuinely a Brad Pitt fan, 'Fight Club' being one of my favourites, and i also believe he deserved an Oscar for playing an 'ageing man'. Yet not once did i see his jaw move from what must have been an uncomfortable position. A bad decision. On the other hand, Christoph Waltz was a great bid for the director, pulling off a stunning performance. If only more than one of about 15 actors could do the same.
My final point is about Tarantino himself. With his first 3 films he seemed so pure, so brilliant, so relaxed yet scientific about his work. Since then he seems to have been lost in Hollywood. In the Reservoir Dogs commentary, Tim Roth makes an interesting point. He stated that film writers make mistakes because they write for Hollywood, for the Oscars. He makes sure we know that with his first film he wrote it to make a genuinely good film. Now i seem to feel as though he is writing for Hollywood. He is writing for the Oscars. If there's one piece of advice i'd give to him, it would be to bring the old Quentin back.