Quentin
Tarantino must be a major annoyance to a lot of film teachers. They say to
become good at anything you must first learn from the experts. Tarantino
learned a lot before becoming a filmmaker, but from watching the stuff other
people had done. It’s the dream of every guy who has ever worked at a video
club: I have watched thousands of movies, what if I made one myself? Of course
now that video clubs are going out of business we’re not likely to see someone
emerge with a similar back story, but if anything he has proved you can watch
and learn. With “Kill Bill Vol. 2” Tarantino shows what he learned by watching Westerns
and Kung Fu movies, resulting in one of the best revenge movies of the last ten
years.
By
the time Volume 2 came out in early 2004, I was still reeling from having seen
Volume one the year before. I must have had a weird facial expression after I
left the theatre because my brother had looked at me and said: “You’re not
going to go see the sequel aren’t you?” To which I responded “Are you crazy? Of
course I will!” That’s right. Baby brother had grown up and had developed a
taste for blood, mayhem and destruction. Bring it on Tarantino. I had turned 18
the previous year, my cynicism was up after my parent’s divorce and so I was
ready for some R-rated violence. I love escapism.
Picking
up where the “Kill Bill Vol. 1” left off, with assassin The Bride (Uma Thurman)
going through the list of people who killed her friends and fiancé at her
wedding rehearsal. There are only three people left: Bud (Michael Madsen), Elle
Rider (Daryl Hannah) and at the bottom of the list sits Bill (David Carradine),
her former employer. The Bride is now on her way to kill Bud, the brother of
Bill, although I don’t see the family resemblance. Having just chopped her way
through 88 Japanese henchmen, it is a change of pace for her to go after a
strip club bouncer who lives by himself in a trailer. It should be incredibly
easy to sneak up on him while he’s rocking in his chair, listening to Johnny
Cash. Not quite.
In
the aftermath of their encounter, Bud locks up The Bride in a coffin and buries
her six feet under. This is shot in a scary sequence, as we hear the nails
being pounded into the wood, the box being dropped into the grave, the soil
being shoved onto the coffin and finally silence. We only hear The Bride
panicking in the dark, until she turns on the flashlight Bud gave her. Him
giving her a flashlight seems a bit contradictory. If he is evil enough to bury
her alive, why show a modicum of mercy by giving her light? Why not go all the way
and have her suffocate in the dark? If I had to guess, I would say because
without the flashlight, the audience wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.
That’s
for the linear part of the plot. Tarantino has never been a fan of chronology.
His breakout film “Reservoir Dogs” went back and forth in time constantly. The
flashbacks in “Kill Bill Vol. 2” fill in the holes of the story as we head
towards the inevitable final confrontation with Bill. One involves a black and
white encounter between The Bride and Bill just before the massacre at the
church. The scenes are filled with suspense since we already know that
somewhere down the line four people will enter that church and shoot everyone
from the groom to Rufus (Samuel L. Jackson) the piano player.
Yet
Tarantino takes his time and allows them to talk first. As bloody and violent
as his stories might be, they have some of the most entertaining and smart
dialogue. His characters take time to have conversations, to discuss important
things and sometimes to poke fun at their lifestyles. Before The Bride’s attack
on Bud’s trailer, Bill warns him of her killing spree in Japan. Bud asks Bill
if The Bride really killed 88 men, to which Bill points out they only called
themselves The Crazy 88. “They just thought it sounded cool.” Well, it does.
What were they going to call themselves? The Crazy 79?
All
of the great actors saying this dialogue do a great job with their
performances. Everyone has their moment in the sun, from Michael Madsen musing
about retirement, to David Carradine delivering an analogy about life and death
involving a gold fish. Also noteworthy is Michael Parks as retired Mexican pimp
Esteban Vihaio. Parks is one of those actors most people have never heard
about, but Tarantino and his friend Robert Rodriguez loved his early work, so
they hire him every now and then. In “Kill Bill” he pulls double duty by
playing both a pimp and Sheriff Earl McGraw in the first volume. Watch him play
a deranged preacher in Kevin Smith’s “Red State.”
Some
say revenge is sweet; others say it is a dish best served cold. The
introduction of a character in the third act shows that if anything, revenge is
complicated. Then of course there is the issue of the surviving characters left
in The Bride’s path of destruction. Some of her victims’ relatives and friends
might want to have a word with her in a couple of years. The fate of one
character on her hit list in particular leaves the door open for a sequel. Will
The Bride pick up her sword again? I certainly hope so.
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