Quentin starts believing his own press and sells out -- big

Rating: 4/10 (29 October 2003)

Quentin, Quentin, Quentin
What are you doing, man?
Anyone who's been a victim of real, bloody violence knows that real, bloody violence isn't funny. In fact, it's not the least bit funny.
I doubt Quentin Tarantino has ever even been slapped across the face in anger. Because if he'd had, I bet he'd be a little more invested in the notion that real, bloody violence isn't funny and it isn't glamorous, and it isn't even all that interesting in and of itself.
That's why 'Kill Bill' is so confusing for me. All three of his previous films to date, have explored the bizarre ironies of real violence. The arbitrary and unexpected turns it can take -- especially when perpetrated by the slow-witted, selfish or over-zealous persons who so often find themselves in a position to harm someone. Cops shoot innocent housewives by accident, thugs forget to take their guns into the bathroom with them, and women sometimes evince a propensity for coping with violence that belies their appearance. Violence is not glamorous. Not at all. It's frightening and it'll most likely be over before you even have a chance to fight back.
There were flickers of this kind of theme in the beginning of 'Kill Bill,' Watching the scene in which two grown women battle with knives in a suburban living room only to pretend they weren't when the schoolgirl daughter enters -- that was pretty entertaining. As was yet another commentary on the appalling matter-of-factness with which the low-life standing next to you in the elevator goes about plying his trade. *** SPOILER! *** In the present feature, a hospital orderly pimps coma victims to trucker-types. Low-brow, but compelling. However these scenes ultimately felt tacked on to a different kind of film and served only to remind us who'd made the picture once it devolved into a latter day Matrix-meets-Hong-Kong-martial-arts-homage.
The heartless, filthy gruesomeness of 'Kill Bill' was what really turned my stomach, though. Heads, arms, and scalps are all glibly hacked off for our entertainment in biologically realistic torrents of jetting blood and guts. We get to watch arty anime versions of scenes in which toddlers cower as their parents are chopped to pieces. Fun. But finally, just boring. How long can anyone be engaged by watching characters get creamed right after we meet them? AS we meet them?
And no amount of fancy cinematography and stuntwork is going to compensate.
There's a reason those stupid Hong Kong martial arts movies showed up on channel 44 Saturday afternoons when we were 12, Quentin. THEY WERE STUPID!
C minus.
Two more quick things.
Hollywood puts too much violence in their movies. I know this. And I know that indie-types like Matt Groening and Quentin Tarantino think they're lampooning Hollywood when they wratchet up the violence to levels of total or near-total absurdity. Whether it's Itchy scalping Scratchy or *** SPOILER! *** Uma scalping Lucy, I get it. Ho ho. But, I've looked into the eyes of the generation pulling up the rear, and I can tell you now, they don't get it. They don't get the joke, guys. They're taking you seriously. They really are. They see us laughing and they think we really think it's funny that someone just got disemboweled. Maybe they'll think it's funny to dump us out the 3rd floor window of our retirement homes someday, too.
And finally, I counted TWO, yes two small children in the theatre where I watched this film. Two small children watched pretty ladies getting their arms chopped off and pregnant brides getting pummeled into submission. Please join me in suggesting to all parents who bring their small children to films like this one that perhaps they should have THEIR arms chopped off.
This movie review by Erik Gloor