I love Quentin Tarantino films. Name any or all--I've seen them and can comment on all of them positively.
With one exception.
Let's start with what's great about this feature: 70mm film looks beautiful, cinematography and lighting is gorgeous! Imagining a whole film crew going out in the middle of nowhere to shoot scenes for big film while it is actually snowing out boggles the mind. This really shows the ambition and hunger for overcoming a challenge the crew had. The continuity throughout is impeccable; I really believe they shot this in one night, and have to remind myself: this was shot over weeks and months! Crazy. The acting is quite good, as to be expected.
Let's slow things down. Let's slow things waaaay down: What I dislike about this movie most is the plot itself. It's a film marketed as a mystery/thriller, yet "the big reveal," is cheap. The twist and turn at the end just left me thinking, "Why did I sit through this if the conclusion is just that everyone dies?" It worked in Reservoir Dogs, so why doesn't it work here? Is it because the good guy doesn't actually win, or that there aren't really any good guys anyway? No--it's not that. It's that fact that this story is entirely from the imagination of someone I am a huge fan of, who takes us on this journey for 4.5 hours...but the drop off doesn't land at all. There's a ton of tension and build, and (being this is actually my 2nd viewing) there are so many hints and lack of hints at the beginning that could build to great climax. For me, it all falls apart when Samuel L Jackson has his monologue at the Confederate general; the dialogue feels so sophomoric, modern, and silly that it stands out. Anyone could see in plain sight that Samuel L Jackson's character is totally making up the story to get a rise out of the general, as he presents no concrete evidence he's ever met the general's son, but the general--either with old age, alcohol, or both--is just too emotional to contain himself. From this point on, it just all goes off the rails and suffers under its own ambition: the audience member is thinking, "there's no this is going to end is a fun, new, exciting, and satisfying way," and it doesn't.
I just wish this was a lot more. There is a way to do films in the same room the whole time in a satisfying way, but this missed every mark. There wasn't enough there to make this, even remotely, meet that standard Tarantino has set for himself. I wish we could have seen more flashbacks to Jackson's character's war, or what Legih's character did, or who Kurt Russel's character was, etc. etc. etc. The fact that one of the main marketing points for this feature was the use of 70mm, and we end up in the same room for three hours is such a cop out for as established of a director as Tarantino. The story is the tension in the room? Well if that's the case, make the people in the room more interesting.
With one exception.
Let's start with what's great about this feature: 70mm film looks beautiful, cinematography and lighting is gorgeous! Imagining a whole film crew going out in the middle of nowhere to shoot scenes for big film while it is actually snowing out boggles the mind. This really shows the ambition and hunger for overcoming a challenge the crew had. The continuity throughout is impeccable; I really believe they shot this in one night, and have to remind myself: this was shot over weeks and months! Crazy. The acting is quite good, as to be expected.
Let's slow things down. Let's slow things waaaay down: What I dislike about this movie most is the plot itself. It's a film marketed as a mystery/thriller, yet "the big reveal," is cheap. The twist and turn at the end just left me thinking, "Why did I sit through this if the conclusion is just that everyone dies?" It worked in Reservoir Dogs, so why doesn't it work here? Is it because the good guy doesn't actually win, or that there aren't really any good guys anyway? No--it's not that. It's that fact that this story is entirely from the imagination of someone I am a huge fan of, who takes us on this journey for 4.5 hours...but the drop off doesn't land at all. There's a ton of tension and build, and (being this is actually my 2nd viewing) there are so many hints and lack of hints at the beginning that could build to great climax. For me, it all falls apart when Samuel L Jackson has his monologue at the Confederate general; the dialogue feels so sophomoric, modern, and silly that it stands out. Anyone could see in plain sight that Samuel L Jackson's character is totally making up the story to get a rise out of the general, as he presents no concrete evidence he's ever met the general's son, but the general--either with old age, alcohol, or both--is just too emotional to contain himself. From this point on, it just all goes off the rails and suffers under its own ambition: the audience member is thinking, "there's no this is going to end is a fun, new, exciting, and satisfying way," and it doesn't.
I just wish this was a lot more. There is a way to do films in the same room the whole time in a satisfying way, but this missed every mark. There wasn't enough there to make this, even remotely, meet that standard Tarantino has set for himself. I wish we could have seen more flashbacks to Jackson's character's war, or what Legih's character did, or who Kurt Russel's character was, etc. etc. etc. The fact that one of the main marketing points for this feature was the use of 70mm, and we end up in the same room for three hours is such a cop out for as established of a director as Tarantino. The story is the tension in the room? Well if that's the case, make the people in the room more interesting.