BEFORE: Another mission behind enemy lines during World War II - I've heard both good and bad reviews of this one, but I'm holding out hope. I've found that in my chains some films are bricks and some films are mortar, and I'm hoping this is one of the solid bricks.
THE PLOT: In Nazi-occupied France, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by brutally killing Nazis.
AFTER: I should be careful what I wish for - I wanted to hear more German spoken, and the vast majority of this film is in German (and French, and Italian) with subtitles. Oh, well, it was still good to hear some more German spoken...but is that why this film was so polarizing? People seem to either love this film, or hate it.
If I had any problem with the film, it was with the length - does any film, other than "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings", need to be over 2 1/2 hours long? Especially when every key fact in the film is stated twice (at least) - so it took much too long for each plot point to happen.
In many ways, this is like a "Pulp Fiction" set back in WW2 - in that it displays a number of tense situations, shootouts and standoffs that may (or may not) add up to a coherent whole, with some of the characters overlapping and intersecting, and others not.
And Tarantino's been around for a while now - shouldn't he be growing as a director, instead of just re-making "Pulp Fiction"? And shouldn't he have abandoned amateurish moves, like that silly spin-the-camera-around-the-actors thing? There are just a few too many filmmaker-based inside references, perhaps.
The good news is, this is a big, bold movie that doesn't hold back. The bad news is, this is a big, bold movie, and the blatant use of titles written on the screen, combined with its complete unrealisticness, makes this sort of a live-action cartoon. Or revisionist history, I'm not sure which.
NITPICK POINT: A David Bowie song in a World War 2 film? Seems a little out of place...this isn't "Moulin Rouge", for God's sake.
Starring Brad Pitt (last seen in "Spy Game"), Christoph Waitz, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger (last seen in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets"), B.J. Novak (Ryan from "The Office"), Samm Levine (from "Freaks and Geeks") and a cameo by Mike Myers and the voices of Harvey Keitel (last seen in "Rising Sun") and Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Patriot Games").
RATING: 7 out of 10 glasses of schnapps
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