Inglourious Basterds **1/2 (rant)

Although I'm a fan of Quentin Tarantino's, I'm sad to say I did not enjoy this film. With a running time of over two hours, the film felt long and dragged out to me. This movie is no where near as entertaining as Tarantino's previous work. And although there were a couple of exceptional scenes, I was left missing the extraordinary screenwriting skills I associate with his other movies.

Inglourious Basterds takes place in German-occupied France in the early 1940's. The film follows two stories: The escape of a Jewish woman Shosanna Dreyfus (played by Melanie Laurent) from the hands of a Nazi Colonel, Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz) and her eventual plans of retribution. And the Jewish-American soldiers, called "The Basterds" who hunt down and kill any Nazi they find (with the goal of scalping one hundred Nazis each). The Basterds are led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (played by Brad Pitt) and once enlisted in "Operation Keno", their mission of destruction eventually coincides with Shosanna's.

This movie started out strong. The opening scene which introduces the Nazi Colonel was tense and I was transfixed by the dialogue. I don't believe any other present-day screenwriter can write dialogue as well as Quentin Tarantino. (The fact that he could make a movie about a diamond store robbery that you never see so absolutely riveting still blows me away. If you haven't seen Reservoir Dogs, you don't know what you're missing!) But in this film, once he introduced "The Basterds" I was disinterested in the story. Brad Pitt, as the only real "star" in the film, stuck out like a sore thumb to me. And I couldn't decide if I just didn't like his silly Tennessee character or if it was the way he was playing him that I found silly. I didn't care about any of "The Basterds" and I found it difficult to view them as "the good guys". - Which is strange considering they were a huge part in the plan to take down Hitler. I'm not sure if I was suppose to cheer when one of them beat a Nazi to death with a baseball bat, but I didn't. And I found the drawn out lead up to that scene - the clanging noise of the bat hitting the inside of a tunnel- not at all suspenseful. (I guess the close-up of Pitt making yet another stupid facial expression didn't help).

I did enjoy the story that revolved about Shosanna's plight, however. Laurent's acting was solid. And Waltz, as the maniacal "Jew hunter", kept me in a constant state of unease. Although there's a great scene in a basement club in the film, there were too many other elements of the movie that I didn't enjoy for this one scene to redeem the whole film for me.

After seeing Inglourious Basterds, I'm inspired to watch Pulp Fiction again. I haven't seen it in years and I still consider this to be Tarantino's best film to date. Although I can't rave about Inglourious Basterds, I am still a fan of Quentin Tarantino's and I will always look forward to seeing what he does next. I just hope Brad Pitt's not in it.