Inglorious Basterds (2009)

August 21, 2009

Pacific Place, Seattle, WA

** ½ / ****

By Scott Muoio

“I should have stayed at the bar.” I say this not because Quentin Tarantino’s latest farce Inglorious Basterds is a terrible movie. On the contrary, there is much to admire in Tarantino’s writing, execution, and bravado in constructing a complicated, detailed, and witty World War II Jew revenge comedy fantasy. Indeed, concocting a story that revolves around a rogue group of American Jews touring France with the intention of scalping Nazis and assassinating Hitler is ballsy and clever. “I should have stayed at the bar” because the film is a long winded indulgence, a vanity project of in-jokes, cinematic allusion, and a series of unrewarding set-ups and climaxes that say nothing, mean nothing, and are surprisingly sloppy considering the immense forethought and skill that created their structure and some of their execution. In other words, Inglorious Basterds is like a Pulp Fiction offshoot that tries too hard, fails too often, and never finds the rhythm of cheap thrills, memorable lines, and unforgettable characters that that film brought to the cinematic lexicon with brilliant ease and precision.

The opening night audience I saw Inglorious Basterds with was pumped from the get-go. As the film gingerly introduced its dozen or so main characters through a series of laborious, tangentially related vignettes the crowd howled in amusement with every funny accent (the Italian segment is by far the film’s funniest moment), silly visual, and blood-thirsty explosion of violence. I was a bit bored but definitely appreciated the brilliant decision by Tarantino to have the characters frequently switch languages and make language an integral part of the plot. But as the film trudged along from willfully European “art” picture to ‘70s exploitation odyssey to war movie homage the film became increasingly disjointed, cumbersome, and repetitive. Yet, for whatever reason the audience continued to lap it up, crowing, cheering, and squeamishly wriggling on cue. To my greatest surprise, the crowd even applauded at the film’s climax, an act I find utterly shocking considering there isn’t one character in the whole mess we ever care about. So when the credits hit it was that lack of humanity, more than anything that turned Inglorious Basterds from revelatory cinematic triumph to merely avant-garde assembly line.

The formula at work through each of the film’s “chapters” is obviously apparent and dreadfully tedious by the third time it takes hold. That formula involves long, drawn out conversations led by a revolving cast of antagonistic wordsmiths followed by a climactic bit of over-the top violence that eliminates a handful of characters before repeating itself in the next stanza. Quick flashbacks are sprinkled throughout which give a little background to each caricature (all of the film’s characters are really caricatures) creating the illusion that we know more than we actually do about the person we are about to see get obliterated. But as the body count piles up we quickly we realize we don’t care and one-by-one as each freak meets his or her maker we find ourselves more concerned with how much longer the film is going to run than who we just saw get blown to smithereens.

Now here’s the deal: Other critics will inform that Inglorious Basterds is a revelation of genius that gets better with multiple viewings. They will also surely praise Tarantino’s ability to draw from his cinematic obsessions (spaghetti westerns, classic European films, and B-movie monstrosities) and assemble them in wink-wink, nudge-nudge fashion. Critics, it seems love being in on the joke and often times that is more than enough for them to praise a film to the high heavens. I, on the other hand, like a bit of cinematic reference but most appreciate movies that can make something out of nothing and do it with style, substance, and in a humanistic way (i.e. The Wrestler, Brokeback Mountain, Sin City, and even The Hangover). Inglorious Basterds does the exact opposite: it trivializes a brilliant idea, a farcical assassination of Hitler, presents characters devoid of humanity, and gives us almost nothing memorable to talk about afterwards except how out of character and inconsistent the film’s climax and ending are with the rest of the film.

The bottom line with Inglorious Basterds is that it is a decent film that loses its way because its writer/director is more obsessed with paying homage to his favorite films and reveling in his obsessions with film in general than in creating truly interesting and memorable characters and a consistent plot. Tarantino is a man of much talent but it seems high time he surrounds himself with people willing to remind him how to use that talent for good rather than to merely indulge his fetishes.

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Producer: Lawrence Bender

Writer: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl, Til Schweiger, Samuel L. Jackson

Cinematographer: Robert Richardson

Editor: Sally Menke