Moments of great acting, but painfully long and excessive

Rating: Null/10 (2 April 2016)

A number of Tarantino's films are great. The over-the-top excess of the stories and characters worked brilliantly in Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Inglorious Basterds. Here, however, it's just too much.
Think of it this way, while everyone likes a little salt on their food, dumping the entire salt shaker on your meal ruins it. This film has an interesting premise, a unique story and great characters, but at times it's so over-done you may get bored by the excess.
It's also way too long. It clocks in at around three hours on most versions of the film. That's way too long for this story. This is not Gandhi, this is a Western drama. Tarantino has been given too much freedom to run this long without a good reason. In fact, the film would likely be a full star better if they cut 30-40 minutes from it.
On the positive side, the characters are often brilliant and the acting is top notch. But the story is so over-the-top and excessive that we found ourselves rolling our eyes and losing interest too much for a film like this.
Some moments of the film are a 9, others a 5, so the average score of a 7 fits for now. This is sad because had they made it more compact and shown a little restraint--this film could have been a 9 and of the best of 2015.
Great concepts and great acting, but badly flawed execution hurt this film.