CATRIONA PAUL at the movies.

WHEN YOU’RE ABOUT to criticise one of Tarantino’s films, you need to take a deep breath and hang onto why you’re doing it. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all that’s good in Kill Bill 2, to be bowled over by all the hype that surrounds the writer/director and his muse (and lead character), Uma Thurman. But an honest response is that something was lacking in the film – an emotional fix, perhaps.

Beatrix Kiddo, aka The Bride, continues the “roaring rampage of bloody revenge” she began in vol. 1, going after Bill and his assassins after they tried to kill her on her wedding day. Whereas vol.1 featured epic fight scenes, the second half of The Bride’s to kill list is more intimate. She fights Budd, Elle Driver and Bill one-on-one and the film trades fight time for personal history.

Tarantino makes good-looking films. Kill Bill 2 is no exception. Thurman is tall and graceful, strong and agile, as watchable dealing killer-kicks as delivering classic lines. Her co-stars, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah and David Carradine, are equally beguiling on screen and there is nothing superfluous in the action or the dialogue.

Stories are told, details revealed. There are heart-stopping moments you should have seen coming, but you don’t. Masterfully cutting between past and present, the story becomes more interesting and your investment in the outcome less straightforward.

So why the deep breath? Tarantino has created a closed world of assassins, where warriors are inhuman – numb to the gore, two steps removed from feeling. Hence, when tears roll towards the end, you remain untroubled. Emotion is turned off at the beginning of the film so the violence is enjoyable, and thus it remains. So, for Kill Bill, a heap of compliments but a pea under the mattress nonetheless.

KILL BILL VOL. 2
General release, selected cinemas.

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Chia Hui Liu, Michael Parks, Perla Haney-Jardine
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 136 mins
Country: USA
Year: 2004

© Catriona Paul, 2004