Not very original

When this movie came out a lot of people I knew were making a big deal about it because it was made by a guy from Knoxville who even talked about K-town in the movie---and guess where I lived at the time? Most people overlooked that Tarantino was only born there and lived most of his life somewhere else, and both Tarantino and Knoxville are highly overrated. Trust me.

I can't see why this movie is regarded as highly as it is; it seems the key to Tarantino's storytelling is to mix together story elements kind of
like a blender. So we get things like the cab driver who's a sexy latin woman who'd look more at home in a luxury restaurant than a grungy cab, or the very seventies looking Samuel L. Jackson running around with the nineties looking John Travolta. The result is the average person goes "that's kind of strange," while the intelligentsia go "yes, the man is a GENIUS!"

I put off seeing this movie for several years because of the supposed extreme violence and the notorious rape scene. When I finally broke down and watched it I was surprised how tame it was, even the rape scene was mostly people shouting behind a closed door. It was nowhere near as scary or unnerving as the one in "Deliverance." In the end the violence was mainly psychological or limited, although the guy getting shot in the car and bits of you-know getting everywhere was a real turn-off.

But really what did the movie in for me was the plot, or lack thereof. Supposedly we're getting an homage to film noir and hardboiled fiction novels of the forties, done up in a modern story theme. What we see on the screen is a confused mess of people running around and doing the most stupid things. It's not a horrid movie, but there's a lot better ways to spend a few hours.