Posted: 12/26/15 at 9:44pm
The first act is probably the best hour and a half Tarantino has ever committed to celluloid. Smart, funny, and tense. It also demonstrates what Tarantino has never found in any of his work before: narrative drive. While his movies are always moment to moment entertaining, they are just a narrative mess. This was most apparent in Django Unchained, which was in desperate need of some severe edits that it never got. Here, there seems to be a continuous endpoint that the first act appears to be reaching instead of meandering it's way towards. Coincidentally or not, it's also Tarantino at his least violent.
Now for the second act forget all that. It's Tarantino at his most violent and narratively messy. It's still fun moment to moment but it suffers from the problems I mentioned earlier. Now, it works a little better than usual because it serves as counterpoint to the setup of the first act, but we're still back to Tarantino at his most indulgent.
Narrative aside, we're still in Tarantino's world, full of great one-liners (though every character sounds like Tarantino), fun one-note characters expertly and energetically performed (Jennifer Jason Leigh is a stand-out here) and a sense of glee throughout that you can't not take part in. The mystery is pretty intriguing, and it's a genre I suggest he explore further.
If you love Tarantino, you'll love this, it won't convert any haters, but if you're on the fence about him like me, I'd still recommend seeing it, provided you aren't so squeamish.
Side note: the roadshow presentation is super well done, and I really appreciated the intermission. The film looks great in 70mm and I would suggest seeing it that way.