This is Tarantino's western. Was Django a western?
Timeline wise, this takes place post Civil War with a bounty hunter played by Kurt Russel traveling with his prisoner, so he can collect his money and she can be hanged. There's a brutal blizzard going on and he runs into stragglers who he picks up on the way, including another bounty hunter in Sam Jackson and a sheriff in Walton Goggins.
They make a stop at a general store where a handful other characters are staying at till the blizzard dies down and we have a tension filled bottle film and sorta of a who dunnit mystery.
This is a three hour film, not unusual for Tarantino. And there's an intermission break half way through. Both halves are very different movies tonally, again, not too different if you look at Kill Bill as one film. I however prefer the first half to the second. First half is all build up, tension, and talk. After the intermission, it's the boiling point, and the violence breaks out in a very over the top way like Kill Bill and Inglorious Bastards.
If you're a Tarantino fan, like a real fan who will look forward to any film he makes, like myself, you should see this. He delivers big on the dialog. It's a very chatty film with strong and memorable performances by Russel, Sam Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, and Bruce Dern. Rest of the performances are cartoonish to good.
The score is great. I think the first 5 minutes is just the score and a still shot of a cross and I actually enjoyed it due to the score.
So is the movie good? I'd say very good, not great. It's funny, I prefer Kill Bill 1 over 2 because it was so action packed and amazingly shot, while part 2 was the story. I am the reverse about this. I prefer the dialog and story over the action half of the film.
It still ends strong and has villains you genuinely despise, which is lost these days, and I got what I wanted as the film ends, leaving me satisfied. But I did wish I liked the movie more like I was with Django and Inglorious Bastards after watching them.
It's been several years since I've watched Reservoir Dogs, so I'll leave it out to keep it fair, but this is how I rank Tarantino films, and I'll count Kill Bill 1-2 as one film for the sake of argument.
Pulp Fiction
Kill Bill
Django Unchained
Inglorious Bastards
Jackie Brown
Hateful Eight
Death Proof
