Unmissable but not unblemished

Rating: Null/10 (31 August 2009)

The film machine-guns at you scenes of unbearable tension, cruelty, hilarity, warmth and surrealism in a way only a Tarantino film truly can. It is an unadulterated QT experience and a step into the surreal comic book mind of a film maker who has always been the most original and yet derivative. He remains important.
Like the film, some of the performances are wildly inconsistent. The epitome of this is Brad Pitt- a shaky, incomprehensibly dodgy start (including an erratic accent), followed by some memorably delivered blackly comic moments later when he seems to have got into character. The characters Col. Landa and Hiccox are the most watchable, a testament to the actors, and they are assisted by the writing. The scene where Hiccox is meeting von Hammersmark in a bar is beaten only by Landa's strudel, pipe and milk moments.
The flaws are not insignificant (Pitt, fetishised scalping), but the impressive moments are too many. The soundtrack's impeccable, and the sound effects are typically the perfect accompaniment to Tarantino's delicious close-ups. Never before has a strudel been so scrutinised.