Road to nowhere

Rating: 3/10 (26 August 2019)

I have a friend who is very much into Heavy Metal, a topic that I am also interested in, but to a much lesser extend. Everytime I go visit this friend, he pulls out new albums, shows me exciting coverart, small musical easter eggs on certain songs and just keeps on talking. Even after an hour or two, he usually still is into his monolouge of gods and demi gods of Metal. He does not really finish a story he starts, he just jumps from one crazy thing to the next, we don't listen to any full song, just certain riffs and solo. I had the same feeling with this Tarantino movie. Yes, the 60s were awesome, yes Tarantino has probably delved deep into the topic, but everything is so random. Look! There is Bruce Lee, look! The Playboy mansion. Look! Deep Purple on the radio. Look! Girls didn't shave their arm pits. - Interesting, but so what.
Tarantino again fails to deliver an exciting enough story to keep me interested. All the scenes seem random, characters get introduced, then just disappear. There are lots of good ideas introduced then just dropped. Tarantino builds up suspense out of thin air (like when Pitt comes to the Mansion ranch), but what was it all about? No explaination, no real danger, no solution, no nothing.
There are new elements over and over again without following any of them through. A Narrator sets in from time to time but who is he? What for? The dialogues are still tarantino-ish, but often seem to have lost all purpose. Even the cool names Tarantino is famous for (From Fox Force Five to the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad) are now just sad and uninspired.
Tarantino constantly drops names of actors, movies and series, but for what? Am I supposed to know them all? Then there is no real plot and nobody does anything of consequence, no development. Even late in the movie new characters are introduced that bring nothing to the movie. The music seems uninspired and randomly picked, adding nothing to the scenes. Tarantinos movies used to be in sum more than their individual parts, but this time they just don't fit together.
I give it 3 stars because of the acting and the ending, but you cannot deny that this is a bad, lengthy movie that does not care for the audience.
Tarantino urgently needs to reinvent himself, maybe venturing into new genres. I'd be happy to see a Sci-Fi-Tarantino (Alien 5(!)), but Quentin should stay away from nostalgia. He has told all he could about the past.