Inglorious Basterds

I’m a huge Tarantino fan. Been counting the days to Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino. A World War II Movie. Jews on the warpath. Nazis getting scalped. A plot to kill Hitler. All sounds good to me, especially given the recent slew of “Good German” movies. Interestingly, over the past month, I’ve run into a lot of Quentin backlash. A lot of conversations along the lines of, “He always just misses the mark,” or “Do you really think this is going to be good?” Huh? Whatever. Can’t concern myself with the thoughts of others. That said, finally got to see the film this weekend. Saturday night, 8 pm, nice size house and…wait for it…disappointment. I’ve got say, Basterds is a bit long in the tooth. Scenes that go on for way too long, conversations that lack tension, flabby editing. It’s a shame. The story itself is genius. The ending? Fantastic. Were there moments of brilliance? Absolutely. Tons of them scattered throughout. Acting? A-ok. But at the end of the day, any number of long-winded scenes going nowhere brought down the proceedings and derailed what could have and should have been an action-packed juggernaut. I don’t want to be too harsh, because I enjoyed a lot of the film, plus it was a pretty fun way to spend a Saturday night, and as I said, the film is filled with plenty of memorable bits. I’m not going to begrudge the guy too much. But unlike the Bear Jew, Quentin didn’t hit this one out of the park.