| Inglourious Basterds | |
 This has been Tarantino's pet project for some time now. Simmering in the background for years, Inglourious Basterds gradually build up momentum, gaining identity, clarity, and the acting talent of the likes of Brad Pitt, along the way. Now it's about to hit screens and UK and we can finally see for ourselves whether Quentin's latest film was worth the wait.The title of the film refers to a regiment of bad-ass, pissed off Jews led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who are parachuted into occupied France to kill some Nazis. It's not an assignment, or a job, it's what they were born to do. These Nazi-hunters provide a headache for their fascist foes, not least the big bad Wolf himself, but one man concerned with other things is Colonel Hans Landa. A fabled Jew-hunter, Col. Landa, is essentially the devious opposite number of the Basterds, hunting down his prey simply because it's what he does. But one day a young girl escapes from him, as he watches her flee across the countryside he is blissfully unaware of how important her future will be... Once these key players are established, with typical Tarantino flair that leaps the linguistic barrier into French and German whilst fully retaining its playfully absorbing qualities, we are hurled headlong into the convoluted plot. I choose the word plot carefully because, you see, a key element of the film is just that: a plot (or rather several) on the life of the Fuhrer. As you might expect its details are far from simple, and there's a lot of stumbling blocks along the way. But it's not complexity that's the problem with this film, it's untidyness. Never a man for a nice linear narrative, Tarantino opts to trail his key characters throughout their individual activities and allow the finer points of the story to fall into place. But being a man with an eye for the outrageous and an ear for snappy dialogue, Tarantino allows himself to get gleefully caught up in his characters. This has two main results: 1) there are a lot of cool scenes, (2) they don't fit together very well. There are fewer firebrand gun battles here than you might expect, but there are oodles (yes, oodles) of cool conversational set-pieces. From the terrorising of captive Nazis by murderous Jews to the deployment of the Jew-hunter's rapier-like wit on all those who oppose him, there are plenty of face-offs that will embed themselves in your memory like a swastika carved on a cowardly Nazi forehead (that actually happens). However, these scenes often feel isolated; shoehorned into a couple of bigger plans which are never really fully focussed upon. This kind of looseness of plot is difficult to explain, but it's something that those of you who saw Burn After Reading will know well. It's not something that completely ruins a film, but it's a flaw that niggles away in the back of your mind with questions like 'why are they saying that?', 'what just happened a minute ago?', and 'they'd know that a silly thing to do, right?' as you try and enjoy the film. Inglourious Basterds is a perfectly watchable movie with some great moments, but for me it is another sign that Quentin Tarantino might not fully achieve the greatness we all expected of him after Pulp Fiction. Rating: *** Starring: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Melanie Laurent, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Michael Fassbender Director: Quentin Tarantino Run time: 90 mins Release date: 19th August 2009 Review by Michael Edwards For more sumptuous visuals, have a look at Sin Nombre. |
