Blood And Guts

Rating: 5/10 (25 December 2011)

The cruelty of various nations in war is measured against their ability to value good international cinema and speak in multiple languages in this frightfully confused, only occasionally arresting offering from Quentin Tarantino.
People coming to this movie cold may be surprised to discover the title characters, a group of mostly American Jews, really don't figure too much. One can imagine the film going the way it does pretty much without the help of Donnie Donowitz the "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth), the anti-authoritarian non-Jewish German Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), and country boy Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), all of whom bring considerable if wasted brio to the proceedings. The central issue is really decided by a pack of brave, cool, cruel Germans and the French chafing under their heel. The Inglourious Basterds themselves just offer a marketing peg.
What was Tarantino aiming for here? I think it was an anti-war film of the art-house variety, where the Germans are presented as majestic if nasty adversaries, in several scenes facing death with a singular calm designed to win us to their side. There's a reason why the most intriguing character, SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), pushes us to accept his humanity even as he commits various atrocities, which is to remind us that war is hell no matter who is on the receiving end.
How can anyone really hate Landa, especially as deliriously played by the alternately vicious and amiable Waltz? "I love rumors, facts can be so misleading," he encourages a Frenchman in his power in a memorable opening scene. "Rumors, true or false, are often revealing." The Americans, compared to the quad-lingual Landa, are pretty pathetic characters, so much so one of their German allies moans very understandably at one point: "I know this is a silly question before I ask it, but can you Americans speak any other language than English?" Well, they better, or at least read subtitles. Tarantino presents a Babel of a film, with a multitude of languages on display.
The film suffers from serious defects, like an unreasonable need to display the director-screenwriter's cinema knowledge at every turn. One sign of the Nazis' strength in this film is their understanding of cinema, whether it be a German sniper's preference of Max Linder over Charlie Chaplin or a Gestapo agent's ability to grasp the black American subtext in the story of King Kong. Joseph Goebbels even approvingly notes the "church-like quality" of a theater where he plans to screen a film for his Fuhrer.
Tarantino also extends scenes well beyond the breaking point, occasionally with good results but more often exhausting our desire to follow along. Terrific as this film is from an acting standpoint, and as impressive as its last 30 minutes are, one wonders whether Tarantino the screenwriter overrode Tarantino the director too often. Talking-head shots dominate, and the idea of breaking the movie up into chapters suggest either an overlong novella or a series of idly-connected episodes from a miniseries. Focus is too often lacking.
"Inglourious Basterds" never bores, but it drains one of their ability, or willingness, to follow along. Tarantino's intentions were in the right place, but did he think people really wanted to watch a bunch of stupid Americans kill stolid Germans? Maybe he wanted to make a point of an American audience cheering on a war movie which features a German audience cheering on a war movie with similar mindless bravado? Impressed as I was at times, I can't say I enjoyed it or felt better from watching it.