Fun filled entertainment - Best since Pulp Fiction

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2009)

Since Pulp Fiction, I have not liked Tarantino. I found his films to be over long, self indulgent and often boring. However with Inglourious Basterds, he has reminded me of the talent he clearly possesses as a writer, but this time, even more so as a director. For this film has improved leaps and bounds in cinematography and pacing to his previous few films. He has developed a method of using the camera to project his themes and ideas, which only the best directors are capable of. For example, in one of the best scenes of the movie, set in an underground bar, his camera waltzes around tables and pauses for tension and floats to show certain items under tables. A technique that must have some Leone influence to it. It wasn't self indulgent 'look at what I'm doing with the camera' like in Kill Bill with the slow motion gun blast. It as kinetic, like QT himself and had a large element of fun to it.
The camera-work in this film is some of the best he has done but, to be honest, when I read the script last year, I was worried. My immediate thoughts were 'Oh dear Lord! What is he doing? This mix of romance, action, thriller, comedy and drama will never work. He needs to be reined in. His imagination has got the worst of him.' And who can blame me for thinking that? The chapters go from one to another without proper linkage and I wondered how QT would make the audience care about all the different stories going on. Then I remembered, this is the guy who made Pulp Fiction. This is the guy who revolutionised cinema storytelling techniques, going from present to past to future to present with dozens of amazing characters. I shouldn't have worried about the script. I should have known he could pull it off. When I saw the film with a friend, my friend complained, 'it was dog food. That's not a film. It's laziness.' However, I answer that by reminding them what QT's favourite films are. Kung fu, men on a mission movies, Leone movies. He has said on countless occasions that he is interested in making high powered cinema that he himself would go and see and if that was his aim, then surely we can not fault him and even if it isn't our cup of tea, we have to admire his sheer audacity.
The one flat note of the film is the character of Shoshanna, who I found rather unpleasant despite her tragic life. She doesn't come across well at all, in my opinion and the chapter 3 with her in it is definitely the poorest. Melanie Laurent wasn't particularly good either. She didn't seem to give Shoshanna any sort of humanity to her so the audience would cheer her on in her mission. I think we were all hoping the Basterds were the ones who finished off the job. However, Tarantino can be proud that he's back to near his best and maybe his next film will be back on par with his two modern classics of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. This film isn't quite up there with them, as the characters aren't quite as dynamic and the story not quite as ingenious but as a testament to the cinema, (you have to see the end as a metaphor) Inglourious Basterds reminds you of the thrills you can experience watching a motion picture.