Great, once past the accents.

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2001)

First off, I heard no hype about this movie, just got handed the DVD by a friend with a short 'Watch it'. Big thanks to him ! Its probably also why I enjoyed LSTSB immensely, repeatedly and unashamedly. It's basically all the things Tarantino aims for ( and sometimes even hits ), gritty, tough-but-humourous and entertaining from the outset. Less hype, but much better delivery all around !
The cast of protagonists, villains and even the sidekicks is truly memorable while satisfyingly 'fresh', and thanks be to the higher powers, Mr. Travolta does not dance ! Also, avid fans of Sting should not hold their breath in anticipation, his 3 minutes of fame are more than enough. And yes, the plot is slightly complicated, with some flashbacks, humour, at its blackest parallel storylines and unexpected twists, but so is life.... Its actually necessary to listen to the dialogue full-time to get all the good ones and anyone not enjoying it should consider having his brainpan checked out for dryrot, ASAP(or watch 'Mary Poppins').
The plot itself is neither overly brutal( while deadly !), nor clicheed, but a well-constructed, fast-paced treat, and one could only wish that more scriptwriters where as circumspect in plotting for a memorable show-down. The same goes for the soundtrack.
As for those 'critics' claiming that LSTSB ripped off 'Holy Tarantino' who BTW shamelessly ripped off everybody else, and recently failed miserably, even with a decent script to work from - just check out 'Jackie Brown') I should point out that anyone who builds something similar, yet definitely bigger and better, does not 'rip off', he improves ! Sorry that Mr Ritchie is a Brit, and , 'oh terrible woe' the boyfriend of trite Madonna, but, lets face it, this movie is much better value than 'Pulp fiction' or 'Reservoir Dogs'.
There are only two potentially troublesome points to be kept in mind - first off the sometimes videoclip-like aesthetics ( hard on the eyes) , and second, the extremely thick accents ( which in themselves are wickedly funny, just hard to get ), which baffle the even the non-hearing-impaired ( but then again, so does Morgan Freeman, and he even got an Oscar for it...), and I expect, may be challenging for many Americans and non-english speakers alike.
Besides this, a great movie ( and if it had been done by Q.Tarantino, a lot less people would gripe unfairly about it.... ) !
9/10