Hard to watch, but seems to have finally gotten a point across.

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2016)

*Very Minor Spoilers (like not even really, but if you want to go in totally blind...) ahead.
I was expecting something like a cross between Django and Reservoir Dogs. That is not what this movie is. I can't really say that this is a good movie, and I certainly wouldn't recommend you go see it. As far as even heavy movies go, this is about as heavy as you can get with absolutely no redeeming qualities.Even The Departed is more feel- good than this. But it made me think about my general experience with Tarantino films, and that's something.
This movie really has no good guys. All the characters are racist, criminal, violent, and jaded, so their actions complement and justify one another's. The violence is insanely over the top, and honestly hard to watch. I could not find one character to relate to because as soon as I found a way to relate to one, they would do something that would destroy that. At the end, you honestly feel bad about what happened to everyone, but also feel like they deserved it.
That's when I figured out the point that at least I saw in this movie. We have cheered along to Tarantino's mad cap revenge fantasies for so long, and never questioned it as we watched families gunned down,people burned alive, and threatened with torture. We always accepted it because it felt somehow justified. There were identifiable bad guys and good guys. But still it was an insane amount of often unwarranted violence. In this movie, we were divorced of that justification. Even Jackson's loose Django analog came off as despicable and violent. Even the most justified characters introduce themselves by committing a massacre. And that was when I realized that one potential message of this movie is to see how far we are willing to be pushed before we say enough. It really goes far enough to force us to question human suffering displayed as entertainment. There is no redemption to the violence, it just makes us realize how terrible thing it is to hate and kill.
Is Tarantino actually that self-aware? I don't know, and I think that might be giving him too much credit. All I know is that I walked away from "The Land of Blood and Honey" feeling better than when I walked away from this movie. To make that much of an impact is at least something. It taught that lesson at least, but I think it's a lesson that can be less painfully learned, so I think it's fair to say your safe missing it in the theaters. I don't entirely regret seeing it, but I cannot recommend it to the average person. It's one of those films that will haunt me. It's good, but don't watch it if you want entertainment, because what it is, is art by provocation.