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Inglourious Basterds
Brad Pitt stars in Tarantino’s gory WWII epic
Quentin Tarantino returns to direct a gory World War II action thriller. A group of Jewish American soldiers, led by good-time Tennessee boy Brad Pitt, team up with up with a German double-agent (Diane Kruger) and embark on a scalp-hunting raid for Nazis across occupied France.
Nigel Andrews, Financial Times: Only Brad Pitt, in the cast, is seriously adrift. As leader of the titular resistance band he irritates in every scene – weird tics with his chin, one-note hillbilly accent – and makes us wonder, is there a new division in the universe? Those who can dance the tarantinella (Travolta, Keitel, Thurman, [Christoph] Waltz) and those who can't (Pitt)? After two-and-a-half hours, we feel dizzied by the dance we have done ourselves: whirled around the floor of a story that goes absolutely nowhere, contains no human verities, has no significant heft as historical drama, yet still proves, now and then, an entertaining piece of Pop Disco Art from the cinema's most talented tease. (Verdict: three stars out of five)
Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian: A colossal, complacent, long-winded dud, a gigantic two-and-a-half-hour anti-climax, like a Quentin Tarantino film in form and mannerism but with the crucial element of genius mysteriously amputated. Over-stretched scene follows over-stretched scene in plonkingly conventional narrative order and each is stuffed with dull dialogue which made it feel like Mogadon was somehow being pumped into the cinema's air-conditioning. (Verdict: one star out of five)
Dave Calhoun, Time Out: What's not clear is what Tarantino wants to achieve: 'Inglourious Basterds' is an immature work that doesn’t know whether it's a pastiche, a spoof, a counterfactual drama, a revenge tragedy or a character comedy. How can we, within a space of minutes, feel adult sympathy for a hunted Jewish family and then childish glee when a Nazi's skull is crushed with a baseball bat? The one cancels out the other. (Verdict: two stars out of five) ·
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I think I'll steer clear of this film. It's got the critics divided and that's never a good sign. When the educated types start trying to score intellectual points off each other over a retread of The Dirty Dozen, then it's time to find something else to watch.
Tarantino's twisted genius scores again, the edge-of-the-seat unpredictability of every scene underscores the pointlessness of war and the vainglory of Nazi warmongering and racism. The Jewish counter-terror crew are led by a subtle and subliminally Apache-blooded Brad Pitt at the height of his powers. This film is a great improvement on the original version, and is much more believable as a work of cinematic art and intertextual subaudition for the postmodern audience. The Mexican stand-off is taken to new heights in the French bistro scene and deserves an Oscar on its own. This is a spoof, and a pastiche, a searing indictment of war, and a serious comment on the nature of unnatural human urges unleashed by the tragedy of war.