Enjoyable but disposable - is this the best he can do?

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2003)

I was entertained by this film. It was better than 90 percent of what was showing in cinemas that week and it certainly wasn't a bad way to spend eight quid and two hours. But I did have a nagging feeling all the way through it - why exactly was I crossing London in the rain, was such a world-wide hype being generated, and a very talented guy spending six years of his life and a hundred million bucks of Hollywood's money (if you add the cost of Volumes 1 and 2 together), for the cinematic equivalent of a camp tribute act?
Maybe I'm being unfair to Tarantino. A lot of film fans place unfair burdens on his shoulders because of his talent, in the same way that people always want De Niro to go all out in something like Raging Bull. With Tarantino people expect to see him cement his reputation as a world class talent by making films that show he is evolving and maturing. Quentin, on the other hand, seems only to want to make cool films that pay tribute to his favourite exploitation genres. That's his choice, and he can do no more than be true to himself. I went to the pictures, I paid my money and I was entertained, so well played QT. But there was definitely something missing.
Kill Bill Volume 1 is a revenge story stripped down to the very basic essentials. True to the oriental and spaghetti western genres he is copying, there is little back-story and no depth. We get the story more or less straight, with The Bride (Uma Thurman) recovering from the almost successful attempt on her life to exact bloody vengeance on those responsible, her former colleagues from an elite assassin squad. The plot, characterisation, dialogue and style are deliberately cheesy, serving only to advance the film a step or two to the next fight scene. True to Tarantino's core values, the action is red in tooth and claw, with swords hacking limbs and blood spurting preposterous tsunamis across the screen in the graphic style of Shogun Assassin and similar ilk. This is all mounted in stunning style, showing off Tarantino's awesome command of film technique as well as brilliant cinematography and soundtrack. It's enjoyable, but frankly not all that gripping. The only moment of really nail-biting suspense was the Bride's fight with the mace-wielding teenage assassin. I got to the end of the film, having enjoyed it and definitely intending to see Volume 2, but I certainly wasn't blown away by it.
The law of diminishing returns seems to have set in here. The talent of the director and the large budget obviously make this better than a lot of the original films, but it doesn't really challenge the real masters in those genres and it surely isn't the best film that Tarantino could have made. Compare that to a couple of films that were conceived and made on a fraction of the budget while Tarantino was off making this - City of God and Nine Queens. The South Americans have obviously watched a lot of Scorsese and con man films, but they still manage to distil that into something new and vibrant, which coheres into much better and more entertaining films than QT has managed this time. City of God in particular, completely rocks the screen and is certainly no pompous art-house flick, but it managed to tell a great story that actually has some relevance. Tarantino has the reputation he has because he opened people's eyes to what's possible with a movie camera as well as entertaining us, but at the moment there are other people stealing a march on him. I find myself asking why Tarantino doesn't want to really test himself and take a risk, by trying to make something really challenging and ambitious. There are great stories like James Ellroy's novel American Tabloid that would make some of the greatest movies ever if someone could ever work out how to film them - is he afraid to give it a go? Even the genres he imitates so beautifully didn't always show such stunted ambition - Leone made The Good the Bad and the Ugly and broke the mould with Once Upon A Time in America. Some Samurai films attempt a little more depth like Seven Samurai and Ran.
There's a reason why people like to see a great film-maker make really classic films, the same reason why they want a great singer to move on from storming the local karaoke bar to go and make a great record, or a great athlete make the step up to the Olympics. That's where the real drama and entertainment is. It's frustrating when someone this good squanders his talent and that's what I fear Tarantino is doing.
His body of work so far includes a brash debut calling card with some awesome moments but still a little mechanical, a superb cinematic compendium of ideas that wasn't quite a whole story, a very good Elmore Leonard Adaptation and a kung fu movie. In twelve years. Quentin's idols in the exploitation world could have produced that many films in a year. If, God forbid, Tarantino were run over by a bus tomorrow, he would have ended his career without having once produced what we think he is capable of, and that would be a shame. The shame at the moment is that possibly the most exciting talent in film is not making the most exciting films.