Playing 'Soldiers'.

Rating: 10/10 (29 September 2009)

If the males - and some females - may recall, playing at being soldiers as a boy was usually all the more fun because every death on the pretend battlefield was the most spectacular or most gory that kid had ever witnessed and now copied. Every "Sir! Yes, sir!" was emulated from the most memorable sources, be they Saturday matinées of war movies on television or misremembered quotes from films our "grandpappies" told us. The baddies, including Hitler, Saddam Hussein or whichever popular enemy of the state was in the news at the time would be holed up somewhere a bunch of kids could easily bomb. It didn't have to make sense or be historically accurate - it was kids playing soldiers and all the fun, ponderousness and real-life dram that could be produced as a result.
This is exactly the tone, albeit kitted out in period-accurate clothes and environs, of Tarantino's homage to the 'War' movie. Brad Pitt, the popular kid in school, is the chief "goodie" while Christophe Waltz, in the cinematic performance of the year, essays the nerd-brained, psychotic villain. Jewish revenge fantasy? 'B-Movie' script transformed into Oscar fodder at the insistence of the Weinsteins? Very possibly - however my advice is to leave your history degree and copy of 'Sight and Sound' at the door and enjoy Tarantino's cheese-dream vision of WWII.