upcoming release -¦¦- INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS -¦¦- 6/10 -¦¦-

me and the farmer : Denis Menochet takes it easy in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Astonishingly, half a decade has passed since Quentin Tarantino served up the second helping of Kill Bill - the writer/director who, at 46, still exudes a certain rock-star celebrity charisma - spent most of that time working on his follow-up. Or rather, working out what the project, Inglourious Basterds, was going to be: at various stages this tale of derring-do behind enemy lines during World War II might have become a novel, or even a TV mini-series.
Tarantino finally completed the script in July 2008, and the movie, with all its complicated logistics, was completed in time for its premiere at Cannes in May. It's not uncommon for a long gestation-period to be followed by a frenzied, against-the-clock production - but the results can often be wayward. Inglourious Basterds (misspelling intentional) is a case in point. Tarantino has had creative carte blanche since Pulp Fiction and the results have been (predictably) indisciplined. Even 1997's Jackie Brown, still perhaps his most satisfying work, had no real reason to run 2 1/2 hours.
   Inglourious Basterds is similarly lengthy and unwieldy, and should either have been trimmed down to manageable length or bifurcated, Kill-Bill-style. Tarantino juggles several plot-lines and sets of characters, including the 'Basterds' themselves, a Jewish Nazi-killing platoon in occupied France led by southern-fried bootlegger Aldo "The Apache" Raine (Brad Pitt, broad); a tragic heroine, Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent, slightly colourless), who survives a family-massacre to run a Paris cinema and plot revenge; a British film-critic (Michael Fassbender) dispatched by Churchill (Rod Taylor) to execute a 'Operation Kino'; plus various nefarious representatives of the Third Reich, most prominently SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz).
   Structured as a series of chapters - most of them featuring very long dialogue scenes (mainly in subtitled German) - the script's various strands climax at Shoshana's cinema during the premiere of a Nazi propaganda epic. By this point the 'Basterds' have become unobtrusive supporting characters in their own film, which is increasingly dominated by Waltz's silkily sophisticated Landa. The previously little-known Austrian - a veteran of German-language TV and theatre - was named Best Actor at Cannes, and is indeed by some way the best thing about the whole rickety enterprise.
   If only Tarantino had been able to exert Waltz's controlled precision! Alas, the tone veers wildly from scene to scene, even within scenes, so that we end up with a kind of 'Allo 'Allo if directed by an out-of-form Jean-Pierre Melville. How ironic that a movie which is so monotonously concerned with reputation (Landa and Raine talk of little else) should itself emanate from a film-maker whose flashy public image has almost subsumed his considerable talents.

Neil Young
11th August, 2009
(written for the 19th August edition of Tribune magazine)

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director : Quentin Tarantino
country : USA(/Ger/Fr)
year : 2009
run-time : 153m (BBFC)

seen : 4th August, 2009
cinema : the Motion Picture Company (screening-room), London - press show
format : 35mm
     with thanks to Tim Robey

MVP : Christoph Waltz
Special mention : Denis Menochet
respected second opinion : Christoph Huber, La lectora provisoria

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