Overkill Bill

Rating: Null/10 (16 April 2004)

Warning: Spoilers!

Kill Bill plays out like a music video of violence, that for one, should not be taken seriously. The gore, which ramps up to its climatic ending with Lucy Liu, has all the makings of a black humor. And unlike 'Reservoir Dogs' which was a movie about pure arrogance and brutality, Tarantino wants you to laugh over the unreality of the violence which is unabashedly over the top. Endless subplots of rising to the top by exacting revenge on the bottom feeders fits the motif of your everyday revenge movie. He charaterizes his victims' deaths in almost comic-book fashion. When blood is shown, and plenty of it is displayed, it unnaturally flows out of the victim's bodies like office sprinkler systems. Again, symbolic of a black humor.
The acting in my mind was subpar, but only due to the lack of dialogue. In one aspect, the lack of conversation keeps the movie's theme pure to its form. In another, it reduces the movie to little more than mere visuals. The barefooted all-girl Japanese band was interesting, however the music was bad, almost to the insanely bad.
When a director gets notariaty, it is common for critics to compare all continuing work to whatever was his or her best film. For Quentin, this is unfair because his 2nd film, Pulp Fiction, may be one of the best films of the last 10 years. Unfortunately, Kill Bill, falls very short of his true gem.
If there are any redeeming qualities to this film, it would have to be the wonderful camera perspectives Quentin creates. The split screen cinematography, the japanese anime (although a little bit on the long side), and the satirical representation of the samurai by having the martial arts injected with 70's music, a la "CHIPs" is interesting and unique. The final fight scenes, especially the one where the some 200 plus 3-piece suited Samurai take on Uma, is a deliberate attempt by Quentin to get you to say, "Oh S**t, this is unbelievable!" Well, I must admit, even though it struck me as a copycat of the Matrix battle between Neo and the army of Mr. Smith's, I did enjoy the absurd battle.
It is in the absurdities that Mr. Tarantino excels at his craft. And yet, Tarantino's devotion to the "shock and schlock" has started to unfold a familiar pattern. Has he become predicatble in his unpredictability? Perhaps. Eventually, he will have to change this formula, because otherwise he will have to outdo himself after every film within his thus far, limited genre, and that's usually a recipe for directorial disaster. However, for now Tarantino seems to have a good command of the box office.

The movie delivers on the mindless action that the title would suggest. So, if you are a Tarantino fan, you will not be disappointed. But if you are a fan of a good movie, or a fan of diversity, you will be somewhat disappointed, for Tarantino fails (though just barely) on both marks.
Grade: C+