Tarantino failure

Rating: 5/10 (2 April 2016)

Finally, as should have been too easily predicted, Tarantino's inflated ego fails. First, the familiarity of most actors, meaning they are so recognizable from previous Tarantino movies as to be relegated thereby to "same person, different Tarantino flick" status. Jackson and Leigh from as long ago as Jackie Brown. Then there's the script. Tarantino's usual spot-on, adroitly superb dialogue here becomes often hackneyed and too frequently period inaccurate. Example: "I'll cut you some slack" was likely not a phrase used, as it is so commonly today, in the old west (nor, for that matter was "my johnson" used as a term for male sexual anatomy). The script completely fails with the notion that there would be a true "haberdashery" in the middle of nowhere serving as a stagecoach stop. Not to mention that an outhouse would not be 50 to 100 yards away from an inhabited dwelling for private citizens, let alone for stagecoach passengers. Then, after some truly prolonged and boring build-up, the plot flops onto itself as nothing more than an Agatha Christie whodunit, or "Clue" game, albeit with the usual Tarantino flair for gratuitous violence. Speaking of which, since when can two bullets to a person's head explode the head off of a torso like a watermelon blowing up? Good grief, as Snoopy would say. Should it even be questioned here as to why, a truly brutal and ruthless bounty hunter would uncuff his prisoner to allow some freedom of movement to eat a meal, but then after the meal is finished allow that same prisoner to remain unshackled and free? The plot fails are far too many to forgive, especially with the expertise and brilliance we have come to expect from Tarantino! And let it be known that the acting is not up to par in this movie -- Kurt Russell walks through his lines like an amateur; aside from special make-up, Jackson uses his same-old everyday, every movie voice; Walton Goggins cannot even deliver a southern accent as convincingly as he did in Justified; Michael Madsen is wooden; Bruce Dern is so underutilized as to be a true black mark on Tarantino. The movie is uneven at best, with the singular exception of the cinematography. Tarantino still has a fine eye for the cinematic experience, thank goodness, because in his grandeur he has lost what made him pay attention to greater detail to writing smart dialogue and directing actors.