As recent Quentin Tarantino films go, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is an improvement on the too-indulgent DEATH PROOF, but not up to the standards of KILL BILL (note: I'm still waiting for a special-edition DVD; maybe Harvey and Bob Weinstein need to buy the film back from Disney for that increasingly nebulous event to take place).
Essentially, BASTERDS is akin to the later films of Howard Hawks (specifically RIO BRAVO, HATARI, EL DORADO, RIO LOBO) where the premise is just a loose framework for a series of setpieces. Some of the setpieces work quite well, some less well and, every so often, they wander into Tarantino recycling himself (the opening farmhouse scene, at a certain point, will remind some viewers of the Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper dialogue in TRUE ROMANCE).
Two observations:
1. Controversial critic Armond White was correct when he recently mentioned that Tarantino won't make a film running no longer than, say, 80 minutes.
2. Tarantino, with the five-chapter structure of BASTERDS, obviously wanted to rechannel the interlocking structure of PULP FICTION. But BASTERDS, while managing to fit everything into place by the movie theater finale, tends to back-burner depth of character in favor of a bunch of long (sometimes too long), suspense buildups of the "can we keep the Bad Guys from discovering The Truth" variety.
Feel free to post comments agreeing or disagreeing with the opinions above.
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