If You Love Quentin Tarantino...

Rating: 6/10 (22 January 2020)

There are countless reviews posted here that delve into this movie's themes. I've read at least 20 of them, and many are engaging and brilliant. But I'm going to do something different. I'll speak to the Tarantinoesque nature of this film.
There's a program on AXS-TV called "The Big Interview." Dan Rather spends an hour talking with noted personalities across all genres of pop culture. Several years ago he sat down with Quentin Tarantino (QT) and conducted a wonderful interview. I don't want to include spoilers here so I think that if you're a QT fan you will understand what Dan is referencing, below.
Late into the interview, without accusing him of being exploitive, Dan asks QT to discuss this: How does he have the audience laugh and cry all in the same film? How does he get an audience to view scenes of a horrific nature yet laugh during the movie or come out of the theater smiling?
QT's response: "when a movie really, really does it to me, it's because it's made me feel very different emotions...I'm the kind of director that I want to play you, as an audience. I want to be the conductor and you're my orchestra. And (I conduct) the sounds that I make you to make, and the feelings that I get you to feel... And then I STOP you from feeling those feelings, and I give you something ELSE to feel. And then I STOP you from feeling those feelings and make you feel something ELSE yet again. Well, if a director can do that, if a director can pull that off...then you're a lucky audience member because you really had an experience that night. You went to the MOVIES; that was worth leaving the house.
I can't help but make my stuff funny because I think of things in a humorous way...but it's not all a big joke. I do like the idea that I can do this to the audience: Laugh. Laugh. Laugh. Stop laughing. Stop laughing. (snaps fingers) Laugh. And maybe that stop laughing is something horrific...(maybe it's) hard to watch." He then cites specific examples from one of his movies where he said he needed to traumatize the audience.
I love a lot of what QT has done, but not all of it. This movie seems to follow the QT blueprint but then it veers off in one direction and stays there. I did not leave the theater smiling. Thus, my rating.