Inglourious Basterds: The AMG Review
August 21st, 2009 | 11:08 am est |
There are elements of a Quentin Tarantino film you can always count on — upturning genre conventions, strong female characters, extended conversational detours, and forceful violence. Right from its engaging, nail-biting beginning, Inglourious Basterds overflows with QT’s signature style.
The opening scene in question involves Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) — nicknamed “the Jew Hunter” because of his uncanny work during the nascent Nazi occupation of France — interrogating a French farmer on the whereabouts of his missing Jewish neighbors. Like the infamous Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper showdown in True Romance, their conversation grows increasingly intense with each line. However, where Hopper’s ornately verbose history lesson/ethnic jab had little to do with the actual story, the dialogue in this exchange all relates directly to the plot. Landa knows exactly how to slowly inflict psychological stress on his subject so that the victim will eventually break — an element of the character that Waltz underplays to arresting affect; this is one genial-seeming killer, and he’s all the more terrifying because of it.
Since Landa has built such a terrifying reputation for himself, there is little surprise that many people want him dead. One of them is Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish woman passing herself off as a Gentile during the occupation. Landa wipes out her whole family, and years later Shosanna finds herself in the right place at the right time to exact revenge. She makes her living as the owner and operator of a movie theater that will host the world premiere for “A Nation’s Hero” — the latest piece of cinematic Nazi propaganda from Joseph Goebbels — and Landa has been put in charge of security for the gala event. However, unbeknownst to Shosanna, a small unit of Jewish-American soldiers, led by the fearless Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), also plan to attack the theater that night in order to assassinate the upper echelon of the Third Reich — including Hitler himself.
Laying his story out in five chapters, Tarantino manages to keep his densely populated tale clear; we always understand the character’s goals, and see where they conflict with each other. And because Tarantino has such faith in himself as a writer, he fills each chapter with protracted verbal showdowns — like the opener between Landa and the farmer — that make an audience as white-knuckled as any conventional action scene. He knows well enough to punctuate all the verbal dexterity with blasts of kinetically staged violence — it’s hard not to flinch when Sgt. Donnie Donowitz (Eli Roth), one of Raine’s men, uses a Louisville Slugger to bash in a Nazi’s head. As memorable as the movie’s violence is, Tarantino ratchets up the tension with his words — and he’s far more interested in the build-up than the release, something that might alienate those looking for a wall-to-wall bloodbath. Inglourious Basterds doesn’t skip along swiftly, but anybody with a taste for Tarantino dialogue will savor every minute.
Tarantino has always cast his films to perfection, and the performers here know how to get the most out of the ornate language. Brad Pitt uses a hilarious Southern drawl, and his attempts at speaking Italian are a comic highlight. As a German movie star spying for the Allies, Diane Kruger manages to be sexy, tough, smart, and flirty. But she isn’t the only hard-nosed dame in the cast, thanks to Mélanie Laurent’s striking performance; the French actress embodies both Shosanna’s determination, as well as her fear, with equal aplomb. But as good as the entire cast is, Christoph Waltz walks away with the movie. His calmness makes the simple act of eating strudel more frightening that you could’ve ever thought possible. He exudes calm logic and mercilessness, and he plays Landa so matter-of-factly that even when the character does something unexpected it always seems thoroughly plausible.
Although the actors are flawless, it is Tarantino whose name will go hand in hand with the film — he is by the modern definition of the word an “auteur.” It’s impossible to miss the distinctive mark he puts on all his films, but as an artist he doesn’t repeat himself. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are both crime films, but they are very different in structure — just as the badass female leads in Kill Bill and Death Proof are the way they are for very different reasons. Because Tarantino keeps evolving as an artist, Inglourious Basterds might not be the movie you’d expect, but those who still worship at the altar of Tarantino will find ample reason to keep the faith.
Hi. Read your review of Tarantino’s latest.
I’ve always been a fan of his, but with this slow motion plane crash of a movie he demonstrates that he is completely out of ideas.
Indeed your comment that he does not repeat himself made me do a double take. He is absolutely repeating himself - the WWII setting is perhaps an attempt to gloss over this.
Though there a few memorable moments in the film, and as mentioned, Waltz is fantastic, for the most part this is an embarrassing mess. QT threw every filmmaking idea he had at Kill Bill, and his films since then have been reworkings of that.
The biggest problem with the film is that it is an hour (an HOUR!) too long. Had this pulp been 90 minutes, I could have appreciated it and laughed along. But the witless protraction of dialogue scenes is pointless, arrogant and just plain bad filmmaking. His dialogue ain’t all that, let’s face it.
In essence, QT isn’t really much of a storyteller (his best, Pulp Fiction, was co-written, and certainly not even close to being as good as he thinks he is.
Unfortunately this bloated, occasionally watchable mess amounts to a can of refried magpie. Terminally dull, misguided and - worst of all - not fun.
ScriptSimon, were we watching the same movie?
@ The Oracle
ha ha! yeah, I realise some like this movie (though there were plenty of unhappy murmurings to be heard upon leaving the cinema in Brighton when I saw it).
It just feels like absolutely nothing in this fresh to me - he’s using all the same visual tricks as before, he’s still doing that ridiculously lazy and paranoid thing of rehashing other movie scores, and rarely have I found myself loudly thinking “get on with it!” at the screen as much as I did in this.
As for him not being much of a writer, I stand by that. There were rumblings at the time Pulp Fiction came out of most of the work being done by Roger Avery. And whether that’s true or not, look how tight PF is - the story strands weave together perfectly - each story is about redemption on its own, and they all compliment each other, but not a moment is wasted of screentime, and Tarantino’s dialogue works there. It’s protracted, but doesn’t feel excessive, doesn’t feel like this is just a filmmaker in love with his own words.
Reservoir Dogs was a story rehashed, Jackie Brown came from Elmore Leonard. Kill Bill didn’t really have a story per se, but it’s pure vitality and imagination forced it through and made it visceral and invigorating. Though Death Proof was fun and never meant to be more than a side project (it was served much better as part of Grindhouse, I think), it was little more than 3 conversations and a car chase (and for the for the first time in QT’s career, it contained some awful, self-conscious dialogue).
So really, I don’t think QT is much of a storyteller. This is evident by the use of ‘chapter’s in IB. Chapter 1 for example isn’t really a chapter, it’s a scene. This happens more than once in the film. I don’t think there’s any real sense of Tarantino subverting conventions or challenging his audience here, even though some apparently expected this to be all action. Those people just haven’t been paying attention to Tarantino’s films.
There is no cinematic device here that QT hasn’t already exhausted - the on-screen scribblings, the cartoonish character introductions, etc. It becomes clearer and clearer that gimmicks are not the language of QT’s films, they are what he uses to cover up holes and lack of drive. A film doesn’t have to be linearly narrative of course, but you do want to feel like you’re in the hands of someone who knows how to manipulate story structure and play with his audience. More often than not in IB, I was cringing with embarrassment or just plain bored. I cared not a jot for anyone involved, bar Waltz, who produced a wonderful ‘love to hate’ character in his performance.
Essentially, this suffers the same problems as the Coen Brothers’ recent mess ‘Burn Before Watching’ (sorry, after reading)…I came away feeling I had been charged a fee to watch a director enjoy themselves - without a care in the world that I was even here.
The best moments, where I forgot that the film wasn’t very good, were when Waltz came on and dazzled.
And yes, I stand by it, it’s an hour too long!
cheers,
ScriptSimon
Great movie!! That is all.
This is a new version of Hogan’s Heroes with the original much preferable, even though Waltz’ performance is impressive.
@Script Simon
I haven’t seen the film yet, but reading your comments I get the distinct impression that you are just as much in love with your own words as you accuse Tarantino of being.
Personally I find most of the man’s work very original and extremely entertaining. It may be that some it is based on other people’s ideas, but then Tarantino’s take on these ideas at least is original.
I don’t understand for example how Death Proof is a rework of Kill Bill? I see no similarities at all, except for the fact that they are both distinctly Tarantino.
Looking forward to seeing Inglorious Basterds.
Thank you for your comments ScriptSimon; I too performed a mental double take at the notion that Tarantino has here avoided repetition. Worth watching for Waltz’s performance but I did share embarrassment at the some of the indulgent dialogue and the awful lack of plot and coherence. Most of the devices and motifs we’ve seen before when they felt fresh and new; here they feel stale and arrogantly self conscious.
@Johan - glad I’m not alone in this…was starting to think it was just me?!
@ Mike, perhaps I do love my words a little too much…something I shall take into consideration in the future - interesting comment.
I didn’t mean to imply that Death Proof was a reworking of Kill Bill, instead I meant that since Kill Bill, QT has been using all the same old tricks in desperate attempts to hold our attention once it wanders from the paper-thin stories. He has nothing new to offer stylistically, which would seem to suggest he has exhausted his supply. Without that supply of ideas, which always kept his films fresh and invigorating, the material quickly becomes and stale, and it suddenly becomes easy to see the joins where he’s pasted other people’s work together.
I agree that QT’s work is generally very entertaining, and he is definitely a stylist. But to say he does anything original is a little off the mark I feel. Anyway, that was also my point. While he has always admitted to being a magpie, here he has slipped over the edge into simply rehashing things. There are a few moments that are enjoyable in Inglourious — but….I feel I’ve said too much already. Damn there I go loving my words again.
Hope you enjoy it when you see it.
ScriptSimon
@Johan - glad I’m not alone in this…was starting to think it was just me?!
@ Mike, perhaps I do love my words a little too much…something I shall take into consideration in the future - interesting comment.
I didn’t mean to imply that Death Proof was a reworking of Kill Bill, instead I meant that since Kill Bill, QT has been using all the same old tricks in desperate attempts to hold our attention once it wanders from the paper-thin stories. He has nothing new to offer stylistically, which would seem to suggest he has exhausted his supply. Without that supply of ideas, which always kept his films fresh and invigorating, the material quickly becomes and stale, and it suddenly becomes easy to see the joins where he’s pasted other people’s work together.
I agree that QT’s work is generally very entertaining, and he is definitely a stylist. But to say he does anything original is a little off the mark I feel. Anyway, that was also my point. While he has always admitted to being a magpie, here he has slipped over the edge into simply rehashing things. There are a few moments that are enjoyable in Inglourious — but….I feel I’ve said too much already. Damn there I go loving my words again.
Hope you enjoy it when you see it.
ScriptSimon;. All the best!!
ScriptSimon, have you taken up permanent residence on this webpage or something? Give it a rest, my man.
Quentin Tarantino is a very important figure of our generation. I was a teenager when the reservoir dogs were in theathers. I am a grown man now and I never missed any QT work, movies he directed, films he produced and senarios he wrote. He is one of the two masters for me with David Fincher. Life would be boring without em. Bye