The Bride Ends Her Rampage; We Applaud

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2005)

The 2nd half of Tarantino's tale of bloody revenge doesn't have the spectacular battles, except for a one-on-one in a trailer, but it more than makes up for this fact with a sublime quality only possible from a master filmmaker. The wronged Bride (Uma Thurman) succeeds in tracking down Bill (Carradine), after a couple more confrontations with ex-compadres. The picture is also filled out with more detail of events prior to her coma, enriching what we already know about all the characters. Think about a half-dozen of your favorite films which never had sequels, which had characters you wish you could see more about. All of a sudden, here it is - volume two: the mysterious faceless Bill is revealed early in all his glory. As Bill, David Carradine strolls into the picture with all the grace and steely charm of a lost king, returned to show us all how it's done. As he says near the beginning, "I'm the man." That might sound trite and funny coming from anyone else; here, he makes you believe it in the same second and proves it throughout. By the end, he really is a scary son of a gun, without even having to kill anyone on screen.
The whole picture comes across as a more mature, polished upgrade of the exciting volume one. It doesn't get a full 10 stars from me due to Tarantino's indulgence in dragging out certain scenes (the one with Bill's brother's boss harassing Budd could have been accomplished in half the time). But Tarantino makes good use of the secondary characters played by Hannah and Madsen. Hannah comes across as a more spiteful version of The Bride and just as tough. As with many players who enter the Tarantino universe, this may be her best role. Madsen, brought back from his breakthrough in Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs"(92), seems very at ease as the self-destructive Budd. And then, of course, you have Gordon Liu as the master - unforgettable! But it's still up to Uma to carry the show, which she does. Tarantino really gets the most out of her when she needs to explode, whether in anger or outrage, or just about any strong emotion; she does it with a suddenness that startles us - towards the end when she bursts into the room where Bill is waiting and sees what she sees. Her entire body seems to convulse and we're all heaving with emotion right along with her.