I did finally get around to watching Inglourious Basterds at the weekend. Pretty disappointing, imho. Whatever gossamer of a plot came apart long before it reached the end of its somnambulant two and half hour run time. The talky, quirky dialogue that was so fresh in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction seems to have mouldered over time. People don't talk like that and after a while, well, it starts to sound like badly written, contrived dialogue. It's a fine line.
The violence too. OK, it's a trademark and I should expect it, and it's not that it's shocking, it's just that it's cartoony and odd, and somehow vaguely offensive. I can't help the sense that it's all trying too hard to be startling and as a result seeing someone killed with a baseball bat doesn't really have the impact of being hit with a baseball bat. Yet it's still not comfortable because it's an a hollow gesture. It's not imbued with any kind of emotional weight - there's no thrill of vengeance. It's just gratuitous.
What I had hoped was a joie de vivre romp through war-time France kicking some well-deserving Nazi ass, seemed more of exercise in indulgence and Tarantino's paean to moviedom. I know Tarantino loves film, but there are so many nods and mentions to other cinematic tropes that I suspect his head is in serious danger of working loose and rolling right off his shoulders.
