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Kill Bill, Volume 1 (2003)
I don't want you all to think that I hate every movie I see. I'm not that kind of guy, not even close. I am however the sort of guy who reacts very strongly and my reviews tend to come off either gushing or hate filled. I'm pointing that out because this is my third review for the site and I still don't have a positive review to show you. There will be one someday though, I promise. Really.
In case you're a little slow on the uptake, that means I didn't care for Quentin Tarantino's much ballyhooed fourth film. It's been a long time since his last film, the over rated Jackie Brown, and the rust is apparent on the angry little guy. That's not to say that he has totally lost his touch. Mostly I'm trying to say he forgot how to edit his movies. This is a film where we get lots of ooh and ah moments where the style is off the scale. But style alone does not make a movie. You need characters we can somehow relate to and some interesting things to have happen to them. Normally I'd say a story is necessary but Tarantino has gotten along without real stories in his previous films. Much as I love Pulp Fiction, it's hard to say it has a story. It's more of a vaguely connected series of events. In Kill Bill we have something resembling a story but it's really more of a Christmas tree. Tarantino dragged it into his house and hung lots of pretty stuff on it. There's a general theme going on but that's about it.
The story, such as it is, is the tale of The Bride (Uma Thurman), a woman beaten into a coma at the altar. She awakes from said coma years later, discovers she's become an inanimate hooker in the meantime, and escapes the hospital on her way to seek revenge. Bill is the man she once worked for and he is the one responsible for the attack at her wedding. That attack resulted in the death of her new husband her apparently, her unborn child. Bill was apparently none to happy at her exiting his elite group of assassins, all with cool snake code names. The Bride is going to track down every single member on her way to gutting Bill like a trout.
Now, the movie runs a little over an hour and a half and yet it feels a lot longer. There are many shots that just do nothing to advance the story. Actually, I never felt like I was being told a story. Instead it was like Tarantino invited us all in to look at his personal collection of great scenes he's always wanted to do. Mostly that means fight scenes. His inspiration is obviously the Shaw brothers kung fu flicks of the 70s. There are two major differences between this film and those films. This film has a massive budget. Those films were shot for lunch money. This film features actors without real martial arts skills. Those films contained countless actors who were highly trained fighters. That results in a real difference in style, even if Kill Bill is meant as homage. Uma Thurman, Vivica A. Fox and Lucy Liu are all gorgeous women but masterful fighters they are not. The end result is that the fight scenes are shot too close and over edited to hide their lack of skill. Great martial arts films sit back from the fights and let shots linger so that we can appreciate the skill of the fighters. They are scenes of great beauty in their own way. Tarantino obviously appreciates that but chooses to work with actors who prevent him from imitating this.
This is an astonishingly violent movie though. The fight that shows the showdown between The Bride and O-Ren (Liu) is numbing in its violence. Some people are going to love the hell out of it and others will feel beaten into submission by it. This isn't a middle ground kind of scene. You either love it or hate it. All of the fight scenes are absolutely brutal. While the actors may not be great fighters, they can act and that help sell these fights as bone-crunching affairs that will have you unconsciously grunting and wincing.
The look of the film is excellent. Tarantino went and hired himself a master cinematographer in Robert Richardson and it pays off handsomely. So many of the movie's shots feel like beautifully conceived paintings. Obviously great thought and effort has gone into the look of the movie. The anime section of the film is top notch, although I consider myself no expert on the genre. It too carries on the film's standard of extreme violence and gore.
Basically it comes down to mixed feelings on the film. I wasn't necessarily thrilled with the fight sequences, they were too fast, to jumpy, too disjointed for real impact. I had trouble relating to The Bride. Thurman does a fine job, so I put the blame on the script. It could be that the savage finality of her fight with Vernita Green (Fox) severed my compassion for The Bride. What she does is so morally unhinged that it was just difficult to really care for her again. On the other hand the movie is gorgeous and contains that trademark Tarantino dialogue. It just felt like a movie that hadn't been sufficiently worked out. I think a tighter editing job, one that would have given us one longish movie rather than two short ones, would have cured many of my concerns.
The bottom line is that movie geeks owe it to themselves to go see it. They'll have a blast spotting the incessant references to cult films and stylistic grabs. The more casual movie fan needs to give this some thought though. The squeamish shouldn't bother going at all. I liked enough of it that I'll go see Volume 2 next year but I don't feel right giving it a solid review. Tarantino has done better work. I think he just needs to work more often so that he stays sharp. This movie felt a little soft around the edges like he'd made too many visits to the concession stand while thinking about making it.
By the way, if you do go, make sure to stay through the credits.
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