QT shows he can make a good film, but not yet a BRILLIANT one.

Rating: 8/10 (20 August 2009)

I went into the cinema with fairly low expectations for this film. Given the disappointing previous efforts of Quentin Tarantino, namely Death Proof and Kill Bill, I was resigned to seeing another drawn out, pretentious and muddled film.
Based on what I had experienced in the last three films, I was expecting a horribly jumbled mess of genres, homages and pastiches, or an overlong and suspense-free violence-fest. And I fully expected that ten seconds into the film. I rolled my eyes at the spaghetti western music and the old-time fashion of the opening credits. Music resembling that of Kill Bill, and an opening credits sequence reminiscent of Jackie Brown. Oh dear... I know this is QT's trademark way of starting films. Unfortunately many of his so-called 'trademarks' are borrowed from other, older movies. At this point I was hoping that was all it was: just a routine title sequence. The scene that followed was make-or-break for me. An SS Colonel charmingly and politely, with just the right amount of underlying menace, questions a rural French dairy farmer about a Jewish family. This is ultimately a setup to introduce the two main characters, who will have the biggest connection between each other than any of the other characters in the remainder of the film. I have to say that this scene succeeded in reassuring me that this might just be a return to form for QT. The quiet, reserved and superbly played out scene is shot through with a lot of quiet menace. Perhaps it is because one character is a Nazi Colonel, and anyone born in the last eighty years knows what Nazis are capable of. But in my opinion, it is because the Colonel is played so brilliantly, we know there is a hidden agenda. This guy knows more than he pretends to, and the scene is just waiting to spring it upon us. When it does, it is before the scene outstays its welcome. Much of the film involves creating tension by the implication that one character is sitting on a fact or a revelation which other characters may not suspect, or at least hope they don't know. This had to be my favourite element of this film. Most of the rest we have seen before. Bloodbaths, unusual characters, unusual character traits (a US soldier who takes pleasure in using a baseball bat to dispatch his Nazi foes is particularly dark, as is the mission to collect the scalps of every Nazi soldier killed) are all familiar ground covered on previous QT outings. The quirkiness is new, however. Sometimes it appears to be a spoof, what with the comical Adolf Hitler, who is played as bumbling and forgetful. But it's Hitler, he was evil, so it's okay. The homages to exploitation flicks are still there, but kept to a discreet and welcome minimum. There is very little in the way of genre-swapping, or at least it seems not to do so, perhaps because the whole film is shot through with the same dark humour, that holds it all together. Most moments of comedy are counterpointed by an act of brutal violence, and sometimes vice versa. The overall verdict of this film is that is a more even, better executed effort than the previous films of the last five years. It feels more like an early QT film, and as such, makes for better viewing. There is no doubt that the film is supposed to be viewed light heartedly, but I can't help thinking that it could so easily have done well as a more serious flick. That in mind, I still liked the direction this film went in. A welcome cameo from Mike Myers in prosthetic makeup served to remind the audience that this is, after all, a comedy. All of QT's films are flavoured with a natural comedy, to reflect the comedy of life as well of it's seriousness, but this is his most overtly comical film to date. And it's a good thing, too, because without this, it would be exactly like any film QT has directed, pre-Kill Bill. Ultimately, it's a peak on the chart of QT's output quality, though it's plotted on a chart that has been descending since 2004. This is the kind of film we remember QT doing in the nineties, with a few tweaks. We're not looking at a new Pulp Fiction, however it's not Death Proof either.