Inglorious Basterds

Quenten Tarantino is one of those directors I will always love no matter what they produce. Ten thousand Death Proof's could not ruin him for me. He has revolutionized film, and you can see it in the testosterone driven excess of films like 300, or Sin City. He redefined my adolescence with Pulp Fiction.

But no one will argue with the contention that Tarantino really really loves what he has to say. In fact, in his movies, the dialogue takes center stage. It is no accident that, quite often, his movies lack a clear protagonist. The main character becomes the consent back and forth of discussion. Every conversation is a form of confrontation, and it almost sounds, at times, like the dialogue is written for a single person talking to himself.

BUT, it is almost always funny as hell. Inglourious is especially funny. It's probably the funniest, no scratch that, definitely the funniest movie Tarantino has created. Which makes it very strange that this is a problem in this film.

The problem is the subject matter. I'm not the type of person to go around preaching about sacred things, and I don't think it's sacrilegious to do a funny movie about Nazism. But the movie had a very clear message. It unequivocally says that film (all film, or film in general) is a constant reminder to the world about the evil of Nazism. Film reminds us (yearly, and always around the time of the Oscars) that Hitler killed six million Jews out of pure hatred. It is a form of vengeance. Or maybe vigilance is a better word, a reminder about what hatred can do to people.

This did not mesh well with the comedy in the movie. I'm sorry, but it didn't. And it was pretentious of Tarantino to think that this could work. This movie would have been so much better if it hadn't had a point. Or if the violence itself had been the point. If, for instance, it had just focused on the way violence is always reciprocated and brutality leads to brutality.

And it was just too long.

There is a lot to recommend this movie. As usual, Brad Pitt is jaw-dropping. He is probably one of the best actors, and definitely the best high powered celebrity actor, in Hollywood. The cast, outside of Pitt, is great. The dialogue is outstanding, the music is (as always with Tarantino) quirky and appropriate. Again, and I can't stress this enough, the movie is outrageously funny.

It's just not, as Tarantino claims through Brad Pitt in the final scene, Tarantino's masterpi