Shame

Rating: 4/10 (23 October 2003)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** So now we know why the fourth film from Quentin Tarantino had to become the fourth and fifth films from Quentin Tarantino. He said that a 3 hour grindhouse kung fu movie would be pretentious. Well, yes, but only because what you've started with is pretentious to begin with! In this first hour and a half, so little happens it's unbelievable. I can't believe that he couldn't have got it down to a decent running time.
I'd have been willing to take Uma Thurman's escape from the hospital as read, but Quentin has to show us her wiggling her big toe for minutes on end. We spend ages watching people get places - Uma's journey to track down O-Ren Ishii, for example, which takes AGES. There's a scene with a Texan sheriff which does nothing. We get a lengthy part-animated introduction to O-Ren Ishii, a character who we already know is going to be dead soon anyway. The use of animation is inspired, I admit, but I just don't care about the story it shows. What else? Well, the whole Sonny Chiba sequence is superfluous. Again, I'd have been quite happy for her just to get a sword from somewhere. I don't need this man to argue about coffee. Although I did enjoy some of the dialogue (`I'm not bald, I just shaved my head.')
So, OK, he's written too much. But, annoyingly, he's directed too much as well. Quentin has always stood on a knife-edge when it comes to over-directing, but here he tumbles over it. Every time the Bride sees someone she wants to kill, the Star Trek klaxon starts blaring, which is irritating. Also, her name gets blurred every time someone says it, which is just silly. David Carradine's hands give a great performance, which is slightly tiresome. He tells the story out of order (as always) and you can sort of see why. But just occasionally, it hinders rather than helps. Were we supposed to see O-Ren Ishii's name already crossed out on that list? And the Pussy Wagon gets a laugh, sure, but would have got a better one is we first saw it when Uma first sees it. And as for the fight...
Oh, let's get to the big fight sequence now. Hyped beyond belief, this is Uma Thurman battling 88 people, or something. Could have been great. Isn't. I still like it better than Matrix Reloaded's so-called burly brawl, because there's no annoying CGI here. But after a while, I realised I'd zoned out. It just wasn't doing it for me. Partly because he decided to switch to black-and-white, which is just pointless. And partly because...
Well, there's two issues here. One is that I have never seen a so-called grindhouse kung fu movie. I have no idea what tradition he is reprising. I only know who Sonny Chiba is through True Romance. So this movie is not, can not be, targeted at me.
The other issue is about violence. There's just too much of it. And I don't often say that. But it loses any effect after a while. It becomes boring. And it occasionally becomes distasteful. When Gogo (?) gets whammed in the head with a plank of wood with a nail through it, her death is lovingly filmed. He's savouring it. Whether it's different because these are women isn't an argument I'm going to get into right now, frankly. But when it comes to violence, QT has always been master of implication (the ear-severing) and of the short, sharp shock (Marvin's death). He almost entirely abandons these in Kill Bill for grand guignol lopping off of limbs.
It doesn't work. His geysers of blood and chopped-off arms only remind me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, while Lucy Liu's death...oh dear. I found Ray Liotta's scenes at the end of Hannibal to be hilariously bad, and our sighting of O-Ren Ishii's brain at the end of this film pretty much tops even that.
Back to distastefulness. The pregnant Bride is beaten up, shot and put into a coma for 4 years, waking to find her baby gone. I think that's enough. But no, she has to have been raped continuously for 4 years too. This is another superfluous sequence. I could have stood it if it hadn't been treated almost as an amusing aside. One rapist is killed by having his tongue bitten off in a comical way. The other has his head banged in a door. These people, especially Buck, are as sick and evil as the Viper Squad, if not more so, yet she hardly seems bothered about it.
So what keeps it from instant 1/10 status? Well, it's a Quentin Tarantino movie. And he's still got it. Not all the time, far from it. But there are a fair few moments that remind me of glory days. Actually, what with the excellent use of split-screen and cameras passing over the set walls, they remind me most of Brian De Palma circa Snake Eyes, but that's not a criticism. The film starts promisingly with my favourite scene, Uma Thurman versus Vivica A Fox. The gun in the cereal is a classic Tarantino moment. There are memorable motifs like the Pussy Wagon, and Uma's Bruce Lee-aping tracksuit. Lucy Liu isn't far off from being a revelation, and it's nice to see Daryl Hannah resurrected in a role not a million miles away from her Bladerunner days.
So have I given up on Quentin Tarantino? No. Not quite. I'll wait till his next film (sorry - his one but next film, I doubt I'll bother will Volume 2). Because I think this is just something he's been needing to get out of his system. He's always wanted to make this movie, and now he has. Well done. If he doesn't now move on and make some movies I want to see, rather than movies Quentin Tarantino (or Clarence Worley) wants to see, then he and I will say bye-bye.