Someone must be in between

Rating: 5/10 (2 March 2006)

Did everyone either love this or despise it? I watched this with my son shortly after he had had four wisdom teeth removed. He was on pain killers--I was keeping him company and he asked me to rent this. He's much more savvy than I am toward these things. It was intriguing--Quentin Trantino's blood fest. Now, is this a ballet or a movie, because if one does not suspend disbelief (even at the bedrock of the thing) this is just ridiculous. Arms severed, blood flying, one gory scene after another, one trying to outdo the previous one. As with most of this stuff, anyone who has ever banged his shin or cut himself, knows that it takes very little to disable a human being. So, if you go ahead and accept that human beings can handle this, then you move right into fantasy, and as I said, a ballet of violence. Choreographed as are most martial arts movies, it works as a meandering blood portrait, a Jackson Pollock of gore. Numbers mean nothing. One person defeats an army. The army simply widens the landscape and the dance continues. Is there anyone in this movie we care about. I can't think of one. Enlighten me. Everything escalates and we are left with one last part of the ballet.
Pardon my naiveté, but the people who love this stuff--why? What is it in you that makes you gravitate toward it? I know I'm an old fogie, but it's easy to see why we don't care what happens to people in war. We feed ourselves a constant diet of this. The violence on the streets continues. "A Clockwork Orange" predicted this culture a long time ago and, look around, we have met the enemy and he is us. I suppose that every movie is looked at as art. Even the wost filmmakers call themselves artists (musicians seem to always do this), and there's little question that Quentin Tarantino has an incredible camera eye. I would be interested in seeing if he can make something other than a blood bath.