Once upon a time...

Rating: 4/10 (7 March 2010)

Alright there is lot to say about this movie.
First, I find it very interesting that people are disturbed by the fact that they don't know who to root for. Somehow the usual bad guys that are the Nazis are given a positive or at least human edge. This has to be a Hollywood novelty.
Second, the combination of more than two different languages in such an authentic way seems to be another novelty. Sehr gut!
Third, I didn't expect to get a history lesson from Mr. Tarantino and I didn't get one. But I didn't expect it to be THIS absurd. The absurdity obviously was intended and gave the movie a comic-like atmosphere. Sadly though, it was not comical.
Forth, the acting of Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, August Diehl and Daniel Bruehl was brilliant to very good. Many people seem to feel that Pitt was bad, but his trashy performance was essential for the comic-like feeling of the movie. His character personalizes the flavor of the movie very well.
Fifth, the revenge? Well all in all this movie is heavily overrated. It is some kind of trashy artistic designer movie. Like a mixture of Schindlers List, Pulp Fiction, Sin City and a dose of LSD. It tries very hard to be cool, but it doesn't quite get there. In fact it really doesn't get anywhere. Some scenes are great, some annoying and many are stupid. Not hold together by a real plot, but by the strong underlying notion that this movie desperately wants to be unlike all the other movies out there. The only lasting memory (apart from some good actor performances) will probably be the overdone splatter-like violence. The ending was extremely disappointing -- maybe this also was intended. With a more interesting ending I might even have given this thing 6 out of 10 stars. But the ending was