Okay send up of the Euro-war film is for fans of Tarantino's dialog only

Rating: 4/10 (23 August 2009)

Quentin Tarantino's painfully over long World War Two film that started as a remake of Enzo G. Castellari's Inglorious Bastards, but which changed over time to this monster of a movie.
The plot has a band of American soldiers, all Jewish, operating behind enemy lines killing Nazi's when the opportunity comes to work with a British officer who's job it is to kill a large portion of the high command at a film premiere in Paris.
The film is essentially a long winded send up, you can't take anything in this film seriously so its a send up, of the Euro- war films of the 1970's and 80's. Indeed the film that the movie takes its name from is from 1978. To be certain the film has better production values than most of the films that he is sending up but it isn't all that much better than the most mediocre of the genre.
What went wrong? Tarantino is what what went wrong. To be certain Tarantino knows his war films and the film very often feels like it fits very nicely in the genre, I'm currently going through a good number of Italian war films and from a feel point of view this film does get it right. His rip offs and borrows, of which there are many, mostly work (even if they frequently break the mood).
The problem is Tarantino's attitude is more is more. This is all well and good, except that the films he is sending up are at least an hour shorter than this behemoth. This film drones on for two and a half hours. It never seems to end. Actually it never seems to get going. Honestly the film is well over an hour in before the film even begins to start to move, and even that it does slowly. I kept wanting to hit the remote to get to the point where it gets moving.
What is the deal with this film. Its a war film with very little action. Most of this film are these long, painfully long, sequences where the characters just sit around and talk. The opening introduction of Christoph Waltz's Col Lada is twenty minutes long. Yea it plays out in essentially real time, but at the same time I screamed "get on with it" at the screen (yes I was shushed) because there really was no point. Actually there is little point to much of the dialog. This is a film that could be trimmed by at least an hour and lose nothing but inane dialog. (Your ultimate love or hate for the film will depend upon whether you like Tarantino's penchant for long rambling dialog exchanges that goes nowhere, or if not nowhere drone on way past the point of what is really required and serve no point beyond showing how well he can write).
Which brings me back to the idea that this is an action film. How much action is there? Very little. The shoot out in the bar, the end, the introduction of the band at the train bridge (maybe thats an action scene) and maybe one other sequence, the rest is talk. To me the film felt mostly inert. Its not a film that slowly builds only to have the tension released in an orgy of violence, rather its rambling nonsense punctuated by an occasional scalping. If you really want to be fair you'd have to say that this film is static in away no Euro-war film- other than a concentration camp exploitation film- ever was.
I'm curious what the tone of the film is suppose to be. After the too long but tense introduction of Lada and Shoshana, the film jumps to Brad Pitt talking to his men about what is expected of them (100 scalps). Its fall down funny. Its so over the top that you can't take anything that happens after that even remotely seriously. Forgive me it sinks the film since every time Aldo Raine comes on screen or is heard the film falls into silliness. You'll have a serious sequence and then Pitt comes on and spoils the mood.
Its also troubling. Its troubling because I'm not sure what I'm suppose to take away from the film. Clearly the jovial attitude is suppose to make it easier to root for the good guys, but at the same time what they do, often in a joking manner, isn't funny. I don't think the Nazi's do anything other than shoot people, the good guys scalp people, cut their throats and beat their heads in with a baseball bat while their comrades cheer and dance around. These are the good guys? I don't think Tarantino was going for the same effect that James Dickey was going for with his novel To the White Sea (the film of which had Pitt attached) since there are too many jokes. I'm sorry the implications of what the heroes are bothers me.
I do have to say that the performances, outside of the Basterds who are just too over the top, are for the most part very good. I was very impressed by Michael Meyers who has a solid cameo as a British general.
Do I like the film? Kind of, but not really. Its better than I thought, but not as good as it should have been. Its a bloated approximation of the Euro-war film. Tarantino has beefed it up and disjointed it in the way that an over-imaginative five year old who is making up his own story would do. Unfortunately for Tarantino the plots of many of the films he's sending up, I will not say paying homage, are so close to parody already that he's pushed it all in the wrong direction. He's done better, and he's done worse.
I can't really recommend it since its too long for what it is. Wait for DVD or cable