The Three Stooges Meet Hitler

Rating: 5/10 (8 September 2009)

Well, well. Quentin Tarantino's long awaited war movie is finally here sort of. It is unmistakably Tarantino, but were it not for this fact, "Basterds" would be pretty hard to classify. Tarantino hits us with glimpses of his former "Pulp Fiction," "Reservoir Dogs" brilliance in a chilling, suspenseful opening rendering of an all-too-real Holocaust. The opening is just a taste of what's to come; or is it? After almost lulling you into thinking you will be watching a serious, sound-minded period piece, the film pulls a complete about-face upon the introduction of its protagonists: a rag-tag band of Jewish-American-cowboy soldiers bent on revenge, brutality, and all-around mayhem, and so recklessly farcical that the film loses all sense of historical scope. These are complimented by equally farcical caricatures of Hitler, Goebbels, and the other leading members of the Nazi high command. Of course, complete anachronism and the destruction of all historical continuity is exactly Tarantino's intention, but comical re-tellings of dark events in human history are nothing new; one need only consult Mel Brooks or Charlie Chaplin to verify this. (Actually, Tarantino's Hitler can be called little else than a poor Chaplin impersonation.) In all inglorious truth, "Inglorious Basterds" does not succeed as a war movie, a dark comedy, a western, or a satire. It is nothing more than a gratuitously violent version of slapstick farce.
Aside from the technical cinematographic aspects of the film, which are excellent per the standard we've come to expect from the Cannes-winning director, there is very little that is aesthetically pleasing in this movie, that is, unless one considers an extreme close-up of a man carving a swastika into another man's forehead with a knife pleasing to the eye. It is all too fitting that this movie should co-star Eli Roth, director of such "masterpieces" as "Hostel," "Hostel part II," and the fake trailer for "Thanksgiving."
Don't get me wrong,violence is necessary in a movie when it advances the plot, gives insight into a character or setting, adds realism, irony, or, in select cases, humor. What made "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs" brilliant was the perpetual tension between comical, and at times farcical elements, and the vivid, gritty, ironic realism which Tarantino captures so well. There is no such tension in "Basterds." The violence, used in previous films as a means to create this realistic tension, only adds to the ludicrous slapstick of "Basterds." The alternate version of history Tarantino presents is as preposterous as it is superfluous. In itself, mocking or changing history is harmless, and even amusing, but Tarantino does more than mock history- he destroys it. He deals with a subject matter that requires, if not a sense of seriousness, then at least some measure of intelligence or irony, but he creates something so far-fetched, so over the top, that it simply becomes impossible to take even the slightest bit seriously. The proverbial pie in the face is replaced by a rubber-like Hitler mannequin's face being annihilated by an MP-40 at point-blank, which is neither particularly realistic, aesthetically pleasing, or for that matter, funny. Tarantino fails in every way that Aldrich ("The Dirty Dozen") succeeds as a realist, and in every way that Chaplin ("The Great Dictator") succeeds as a satirist.