The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Tarantino

Rating: 5/10 (16 January 2010)

I had hoped this film would be a rip-roaring Tarantino ride but it was major creative misfire. It is really two films, the film up to the shootout in the basement bar and film that comes after.
The Good: A more painterly film than Quentin has ever done before - with some, frankly, beautiful shots. For part of the film a standout performance by the German (Swiss?) fellow Christoph Waltz until the film went off the rails. Riveting tension in the first long scene at the farmhouse.
The Bad: Once Brad Pitt sticks his finger into the lady's bullet-wound in her leg this version of the plunge-the-syringe-in-her-heart-scene just unraveled any logic the story possessed. The real human horror of an occupier hunting for human beings hiding from cruelty set up at the beginning of the film (the terrified family hiding under the floorboards as an evil Nazi stands on top of them in pursuit) is utterly betrayed and nullified as the film descends into farce. Pitt is terrific, like a Jimmy Stewart, when he plays a version of himself ... his, er, characters don't come across so well. It seemed like he was having himself a good time on-set making a Tarantino film but he loped through this thinly-written caricature of a part.
The Ugly: Ah, where to begin ... let's start with a complete breakdown in security at a theatre where the elite of the Nazi leadership would be viewing a propaganda film. There would have been soldiers for blocks around and in every room and at every doorway in the theatre where the assassination was to take place. Ridiculous. Was not there a blatant racist reference in the set-up (Col. Landa at the lunch meeting) that the black projectionist was to not even be on the property the night of the premiere? Yet, he's there in the projection room, running around, and behind the screen. Ridiculous and poorly written. The scalping looked fake each and every time. Pitt's accent. Eli Roth's acting. The too contemporary feel of some shots and scenes. The lighting in the theatre lobby - it felt like let's-blow-this-up-at-the-finale James Bond set. The musical choices - usually a Tarantino strong point but he blew it here. The TONE of the film changed radically in the aftermath of the basement shootout: suddenly the well-crafted revenge set-up (the little girl would face off with the evil German Col. Landa again) morphs into the stupid - now the whole previous scene of a minor cultural slip ("three" in fingers) and accents is negated and trashed as the kooky kids are gonna act EYE-talian! Dumb. It was an entirely different movie from this point on. The cast on the lady's leg looked stupid, the acting dropped a couple of notches (except for Waltz - but he was allowed to roam freely into camp). As an audience we were promised something human and meaningful in the powerful first scene yet Tarantino either lacked the courage of this conviction or never intended to complete this film without plenty of snark and smugness because the emotional bond we established with that family who dies mercilessly and the daughter who gets away is trivialized as the film goes on to the point of nothingness. When the annoying war-hero-turned-actor Nazi soldier and the lady-in-red have their doomed lovers shootout to the death you just don't care anymore - we're now in it for the twists and turns on the roller-coaster not for any meaning to a story. And the UGLIEST of all: we are set up for showdown with the girl-who-got-away and the Nazi hunter only to have it come to nothing. This was no revenge fantasy, it was a trifle that dabbled in war movie clichés and let some actors riff. We were cheated of the powerful scene where Shosanna faces her tormentor directly and to the last.
The Tarantino: I felt at times like I was watching a riff on Sin City or that he was channeling The Producers (original film) in some shots and scenes. It is his most uneven film. Tarantino is hard to fathom on this one.