Some missteps, but mainly enjoyable

Rating: 8/10 (7 September 2009)

Awful. Terrible. Really bad.
That's my rating of the *comments* on this movie, not the movie itself. It seems like *every single comment* is by someone who either loves Tarantino or hates Tarantino or used to love but now hates Tarantino, and is in any case determined to judge this movie solely on how it compares to other Tarantino movies that they either love or hate. Seriously, go try to find some review that *just* review *this film* without reference to Tarantino or his other films. Nobody seems the tiniest bit interested in just judging this movie by itself, for what it is; everyone seems stubbornly determined to start from what they *expected* it to be. I found this very annoying, because I have no particular opinion of Tarantino, and I'm not at all sure I've ever seen any of his other films. So I'm judging this film purely by *this film*.
And I liked it. A lot. Not perfect, I definitely have some nits to pick. But on the whole, the story engrossed me, the suspense was totally suspenseful, some of the characters were memorable, and at least some of the humor quite funny. I very much liked the way language was used in the film.
Was it profound or thought-provoking? No. Was it art? No. But it was entertaining and well made, and that's fine with me.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't pick at the nits. The film vacillated clumsily in tone, between serious, intense drama, and a vastly more frivolous tone. For instance, the use in some cases of hand-written labels for characters drawn onto the screen, or rock-and-roll music at inappropriate times. I really felt the frivolousness didn't work at all and was distracting.
And then there was the graphic violence. I'm not big on gore, not at all. For the most port, I thought the overt gore was reasonably appropriate to the story and characters. But the final scene was *well* over the line. I couldn't watch it, I eventually had to turn away. It didn't need to be that long and explicit, period. I don't pay good money to come to the theater to have to squirm and wince like that, that's not an enjoyable experience.
But on the whole I thought it was very good. The proof of the pudding: I was very surprised after the film when I looked at the theater lobby clock and realized how long the movie had been; it definitely did not seem that long while I was watching it, and that's generally the mark of a good film.