Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Review: 'Inglourious Basterds' plays vigilantes with Nazis and like it is art house spectacle


Inglourious Basterds   R      
            Quentin Tarantino's log awaited reinvention of the 'Dirty Dozen' remake, 'Inglourous Bastards', from Italy, is sometimes brilliant eye candy with a flair for gross outs. Set during World War II, where the similarities to the other two films kind of appear, a ragged band of Jewish mercenaries (unlike the convicts from the Italian one), are not ordered to stop a German train, but rather have no directives, just to kill and scalp every Nazi they can find. Tarantino so loves using old movie clichés and mentioning them (obscure German ones even) that it bogs down the movie though, and there isn't nearly enough carnage. Brad Pitt is hilarious as the leader of the 'Basterds' who evidently can't 'spell too good', The rest are just there to massacre Nazis. The plot concerns a Nazi 'Jew' hunter who makes a deal with a strange movie house owner to hold a premiere for a sniper film praising a hero in their ranks. Story reinvents the ending of the war also. If it weren't for so many long breaks where two or more people discuss movies and drinking games it would be a brilliant war version of a cowboy picture. 'Ebert goes to meet Kevin Bacon while watching Nazi movies where someone scalps them six degrees from Paris'.
Review by Adam Browne

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