FIVE STARS

In an interview prior to the release of Quentin Tarantino’s 4.5th film, the director admitted he finds sick pleasures in making people laugh at what they shouldn’t.

Don’t find murder funny? What about really bloody murder? Infanticide? Pedophilia? Rape? Well welcome to Kill Bill, where humor, ultra violence and above all else revenge are blended seamlessly into a recklessly superb concoction that nearly defies description.

To begin to understand this movie you have to double underline the next sentence. This film has no boundaries. It wildly weaves from one tone to another, from punch line to dismemberment, with the kind of madness that only the disturbed can envision and the visionary can perfect.

For instance, as Uma Thurman’s character (who we deliberately know only as The Bride) wakes up from a four-year coma induced by her ex-compatriots when she attempted to leave the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and get married, she wastes no time spilling a little blood on her hospital scrubs when she is mounted by an opportunistic trucker with an extra $75 in his pocket.

And that’s only the beginning.

Make no mistake, though I am hard pressed to think of a more violent mainstream movie released in the modern era, none of the killing is senseless. Everyone has a motive for each slice, shot or stab.

Kill Bill also never loses the feel of a Tarantino movie; along with the trademark dialogue, it is easy to spot the staple touches of other QT projects. We get fresh takes on the carnage of the bar scene in From Dusk Till Dawn, the same look of shock and confusion that a young Butch had on his face while Christopher Walken described how he kept his father’s watch safe for so many years, and of course, a body in the truck.

The acting? Well, considering we only get to see about half of the ensemble cast in this volume, it is sparing aside from Thurman. Vivica A. Fox and Lucy Liu each shine during their screen time as the first two targets of The Bride’s wrath. Meanwhile, David Carradine’s titular Bill is never seen and Michael Madsen’s Budd along with Darryl Hannah’s Elle each make impressions with only a smattering of lines.

Somewhere between the beheadings, fountains of blood and original music by Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA you come to realize that in the hands of anyone else, this movie would be a total joke. And in a lot of ways it still is, just not one you would tell in public.

Published on October 8, 2003 at 12:00 pm