Characters are driven to inevitable futures, but it's always nice to see a movie that simplifies the drive. This title is as good as the much lauded Snakes on a Plane for pure descriptive purposes. You know what's going to happen from the minute you walk into the theater--there is no guesswork that Bill won't be killed--and anybody who thinks that this is a spoiler is missing the point. It's the process and the journey that amuse so much.
And show what a true crazed master that Tarantino is. The movies that he worships, and gives ode to here, are nowhere near as entertaining as his opus. Why? Because Tarantino does it all outside of genre--he's poking fun and paying homage at the same time.
Here too, he uses the standard saws of Spielberg--the mother and child--and twists it on its head, so that sentimentality leaks out and only a skeleton is left. No tear jerking here, just understanding why the heck the Bride would do what she does when she does it. And, of course, even egg her on despite the bloodiness of her rampage.
Some might argue that the plot is insignificant, but despite the fact that Tarantino is so copied by fools who just stack a bunch of improbable and shockable violence and abstract, witty, nostalgia driven dialogue in a film and call it a QT alike, the true test of a Tarantino film is plot and character. (but wait--dialogue like this is pure gold: "If on your journey you should meet God, god will be cut."). It's like the people copying the iPod who haven't had any success. The original still outshines the copies, and so it is in this case as well. Because they don't get it--they don't understand what the original success was about, and try to paint-by-numbers their way in.
The reason the heroin-overdose part of Pulp Fiction works so well is that you've been hanging out with these characters and you like them (or, in the case of Stoltz and especially Arquette don't like them so much) and you know what's at stake if she dies. Therein lies the comedy.
Just putting some thugs in suits and handing them throwaway Wildeisms doesn't make a QT. Here's hoping the man has a long life full of filmmaking.
Where we saw it: DVD (Seen It Before) | We deign to rate it: 87 outta 100