I gotta hand it to Tarantino.

I thought he had become lazy or bored the last few films: Sign up a few great actors, write a script with fuc* and nig*** every other sentence, frequently shoot or knife someone to bloody results, and bank the cash.

However, this film seemed to have been the result of a lot of very careful thought and crafting. It was the least violent Tarantino movie I've seen, but still extremely riveting even through 2 hours and 40 minutes. Even his minor characters have, well, character.

I'm in my 60s now and, surprisingly, not as grumpy as I used to be. I remember DeCaprio and Pitt as essentially boy actors, but I really appreciate the fact that their mature selves can give amazing performances like this, where you can't wait to see what they will do in the next scene.

And, of course, there's the little smiles from Tarantino blessing us for even a few seconds, with a few of his friends and our favorites: Clu Gulager, Michael Madsen, Kurt Russell, Emil Hirsch, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Mike Conners in a "Mannix" episode, the theme from "The FBI", etc. - and how Pacino slid into this film I'll never know.

I enjoyed this so much that I'm not even going to complain that Harvey Keitel didn't have a moment. Here's to hoping that QT decides to do a few more of these.