A study in style over substance

Rating: 6/10 (13 July 2007)

This is probably Quentin's best movie of the ones I've seen simply because it IS so stylized. However, beyond that this is nothing to hold it up. I don't care how great the acting is, there's just no real plot. OK, there is a plot but it's totally beside the point.
There's a heist that involves a group of criminals who have to split up and meet up later. An undercover cop who is in on the heist watches as another cop gets tortured. Tempers flare amongst the criminals and one gets shot. Despite being criminals and not really knowing each other, some show loyalty. That's pretty much it.
Some friends have told me that I missed the part in the end where you hear the cops show up and gun some of the criminals down. That doesn't change much. I'm not compelled in any way to really care for any of the characters. There's not really any background on any of them. There's no substance. It's all one-dimensional even down to the stupid "mr. pink" "mr. white" names they're given. Twelve Angry Men is an awesome film that does the opposite of this and uses pretty much one boring room as the entire setting. Yet it's interesting because the plot is good and it's all about the characters. Breakfast Club is a totally different film that does the same. Both make more lasting statements than are made here. The most memorable of which deals with lyrics from a Madonna song and Michael Madsen's almost comical "Are you gonna bark all day...?" ooh i'm a bad-ass line.
No one will ever make a movie that can beat Tombstone in that category. And yeah that movie is all style, but there's still a story to it. The characters resemble people.
The fact is that Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen and most of the rest are all great actors. They all play their parts well and exhibit that one "color" as it were. There are some cool lines here and there. The music is great. The violence is sort of inventive (using the old trick of letting your imagination fill in the blanks IS brilliant). The rest of it is...well I don't see anything going on. There is no rest of it as far as I'm concerned.