I saw Inglorious Bastards recently.
It was not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, that dishonor would go to the random and totally bizarre Southland Tales, which I taped one night, watched about an hour and after seeing a dozen plot threads that never seemed related to each other much less explained, turning off the VCR without regret.
No, Inglorious Bastards is not random. Everything makes sense more or less.
[Warning: the below contains some spoilers]
But it is by far and away the most tedious movie I’ve ever watched. At the beginning, a german officer is visiting a farm. It seemed to take an age for him to get inside the house, much less sit down and then there was about 5 min of chit-chat before they even came close to moving on with the plot.
Was there a reason for that? No, none whatsoever that I could see.
In fact, pretty much ever scene was about 3 times longer than required, except for the action which in some cases made up only a few seconds. Think you’re going to see lots of raids on nazis? Sorry, no such luck.
But hey, if you want to see a 30 min scene where the bastards make contacts with their contact in a basement french bar while tangling with various Germans of equally varying sobriety, you’re in luck! Actually, that makes it sound interesting. It’s not.
That scene led to the total destruction of the original plan. Think we’re going to see some quick ingenious thinking to put together a new one? Not really.
Think of the most boring lecture you ever, ever encountered in your university study. Then try to impose that onto a movie set in war time france and you have a fairly good idea of what watching this movie was like.
Even the end was a disappointment. A clash was setup between two groups, with tension building… what would the protectionist do when his boss failed to show? Um, he just continued with the plan without a second thought.
Dimpost linked to this review, I can only concur.
It isn’t funny; it isn’t exciting; it isn’t a realistic war movie, yet neither is it an entertaining genre spoof or a clever counterfactual wartime yarn. It isn’t emotionally involving or deliciously ironic or a brilliant tissue of trash-pop references. Nothing like that. Brad Pitt gives the worst performance of his life, with a permanent smirk as if he’s had the left side of his jaw injected with cement, and which he must uncomfortably maintain for long scenes on camera without dialogue.
Look, I like most movies. I’m like that. I might have walked out, but it always seemed ready to jump into life… but never bothered to do so.
In sumary, wild horses coudn’t drag me back to see this one again. I’d rather impale myself on a blunt spoon.
Comments on: "Inglorious Bastards – Avoid at all costs" (3)
It was very Tarantino.
I’ve never been all that keen on Tarantino films full stop.
* Always lacking in endearing characters.
* The scattered, fractionated plot style is irritating.
* The gratuitous over-use of the word “f**cken”.
It was an arty film, very Tarantino, slow in places but thoughtful and funny in other places, I loved it. Of course it could have been better – but I’d watch it again.