A let-down but still worth a look

Rating: 6/10 (4 January 2016)

The good - it's Quentin so the dialogue is interesting, the characters are colorful, and the direction is stylish. If you're a fan of his work, you'll probably find something to like here even if, like me, you don't love the movie as a whole. The bad - it's overlong, surprisingly stagy, dripping with anger and ugliness with far too many of the usual Tarantino excesses. The coarse language, cheap attempts at gore, and constant racial epithets are nothing new but it just felt like he was trying too hard and I'm not really sure what he was trying to prove. Just a suggestion but perhaps it's time for Quentin to evolve as a filmmaker and learn to make his points with some eloquence instead of throwing feces at people to get attention. Probably the biggest sin is the length of the film. There's no reason for this to be nearly three hours (and certainly no reason for it to be over three, as with the roadshow version). The first hour needs severe cuts as nothing much happens and whole scenes feel like they're repeating what happened five minutes earlier. The cast does a fine job playing unlikable characters. Yeah, they're all over-the-top, but given the slow pacing and the fact that the movie feels like a foul-mouthed variation on the old "drawing room mysteries," some loud performances are kind of necessary. Look, I know most of my review has been complaining but it's not that I hated the movie. I just think it could and should have been better. As it is, it's worth watching but not one of Tarantino's best.