Misfiring, self indulgent latest addition to the Tarantino staple

Rating: 4/10 (5 May 2010)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
During the second world war, in Nazi occupied France, a young girl witnesses the execution of her family at the hands of Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), barely escaping herself. Years later, that young girl has grown into Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) a cinema owner who has big plans for revenge at a big premiere that the German army will be attending. Meanwhile, similar plans for retribution are in mind for a group of Jewish-American soldiers calling themselves 'The Basterds', lead by tough nut hill billy Aldo Reine (Brad Pitt) who plan to leave their mark on the monsters by killing them- and taking their scalps as trophies.
Despite being one of the most recognised and influential writer/directors of our time, Quentin Tarantino is one of the most selective men in the business, dishing out new material once every blue moon. His latest work, a loose remake of an old war film with the same name, revolves around one of the biggest themes that his films are known for- revenge. Violent, bloody revenge, to be more precise. It's lacking the fun, vibrant edge of the Kill Bill films and for all it's brutality, does display a more mature, rounded edge than most of his work. This is a blessing and a curse, though, because Inglorious Basterds is simply no fun at all. In fact, it's deadly boring. The kiss arse film magazines and aficianardos have fallen over themselves with praise as usual, trying to make everyone feel it's another absolute work of genius and that Tarantino can do no wrong, but to a wider demographic of the audience, the film will just come over as pretentious and wholly self indulgent, thinking it's so clever but really just too big for it's boots. Most of the dialogue is over the top and completely unbelievable and the film pretentiously plays in different 'chapters', like it's some deep, meaningful piece of art and not just the usual Tarantino blood fest. Performances wise, Pitt carries the lead role well, not leaving a huge mark or creating a truly memorable character, but doing the best he can and to be fair, the supporting cast, including Laurent, Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger, are all on top form too but the material weighs them down.
Those not screaming about the genius writing and directing will, as usual, be complaining about the violence, but despite some nasty scenes, it's hard to see it as a film that in any way really glorifies violence or stylises it, as some of Tarantino's past films arguably have. All the same, though, it's a slow, uppity mess of a film that is so far up itself it loses touch with what made it's directors films so great in the first place. **