Typical QT frustrating stuff

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2016)

As always, there's good stuff here from QT but yet again, his indiscipline and self-indulgence drag this down to a 7 for me.
QT is an undoubtedly capable writer but he is constantly let down with both the editing and what seems to be weak direction with respect to forcing his actors to deliver in a particular manner.
Top of that list, I'm afraid, is Samuel L. Jackson who despite a generally good performance here, looks and sounds like he's just stepped out of 90's Compton and while that's always a problem for me in all his roles, it's all the more jarring in a period setting like this where all the other actors are delivering appropriate accents and mannerisms.
As for the other actors, they are uniformly terrific. Kurt Russell is always good value and I was delighted to see Bruce Dern here still showing he's got the acting chops and then some. Special mention should also go to Jennifer Jason Leigh who I thought led the bunch with QT quite clearly pushing her towards an Exorcist looking appearance - she was superb I thought and I could push her for a Best Supporting Actress nod here ...
I gather there's some fuss about the usage of the 'N' word here and while I think that's certainly an issue in the past, I don't have any problems with it in this setting. It's just post-Civil War for crying out loud and given the characters, it would seem inappropriate for that word *not* to be flung around all the time. Unfortunately, the issue I do have with it, and the 'MF' word is that yet again, Samuel L. Jackson is involved and I'm starting to have problems remembering a film where he *didn't* fling those words around all the time and it has become very, very off-putting for me and absolutely stops me from seeing him as anything else but Samuel L. Jackson, the guy who will look and sound the same in every film and you can bet your bottom Dollar that he'll be saying 'N' and 'MF' a lot, even if a film is set in 11th Century England ...
Clearly, the guy is doing well in terms of making money and getting into decent productions but I for one started avoiding his "work" some years ago because he ruins everything he's in for me - he's the black Keanu Reeves - I only managed to see this because of the amount of spare time I have over Xmas, otherwise I would have ducked it like all his other films ...
All in all, this is worth a watch but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it ...
Here's hoping that QT will, eventually, get a grip on himself and start making films that hit everyone in the right spot, not just himself and, presumably, his large gang of 20-something fans ...