Months before its slated August release, Quentin Tarantino and company (that particular company being Weinstein) screened in Cannes competition. And the early morning screening I attended was packed to the brim. Literally all 2200 seats in the Lumiere theater were occupied, not to mention a packed second screening that took place a half an hour later at the Salle Soux theater for overflow viewers from the first screening.
But then that was expected. Weinstein has been selling this thing BIG before and during the fest – selling it epic, selling it as necessary cinema. Movie star Brad Pitt and the like.
So imagine my surprise when I watched the film and released how relatively small it actually is. Granted this is an early cut of the film (and the word on the street is that Weinstein is not happy with it and wants to see some significant changes) but Basterds is not Tarantino’s epic. In many ways, it’s much like his other films – long and full of well-written banter but comprised of only a handful of scenes that are broken up into chapters.
The story, however, is certainly big, not necessarily in scope but rather imagination. This is an imaginary world that takes place during WWII in Europe; after all the first chapter is titled “Once upon a time in German-occupied France…” A fairytale introduction that introduces an violent auteur’s dream of what the Second Great War is not historically but rather pop-culturally.
From that perspective, the film works really well. Currently running at about 2 and a half hours (expect that to change), it flies by like no Tarantino film has ever flown by. Consider how Reservoir Dogs lingers for it’s short 90 minutes (that is not meant to be a criticism) and consider the opposite.
This is because there is a lot going on in this thing; two stories that intersect rather nicely. The first concerns Shosanna Dreyfus, a young woman who escapes the evil hands of Colonel Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa, the lead villain played brilliantly by Christopher Waltz. Shosanna flees to Paris, where she claims ownership of a small movie theater. The second story concerns the Basterds, a group of ruthless Jewish-Americans led by Brad Pitt’s Aldo Raine. Pitt’s Southern-ish accent is as ridiculous as it sounds in the trailer, but it eventually works in the same way Al Pacino’s absurd Cuban accent works in Scarface.
In the same vein is Tarantino’s version of Hitler, played by Martin Wuttke, which is a parody of many parodies and almost distracting in the context of the rest of the film. But every time it might just cross the line, Hitler disappears for a while off screen and the viewer is allowed to detox.However, even though Mike Myers makes the smallest of cameos as British General Ed Fenech, it is very distracting and bluntly unneeded.
This is Pulp Fiction-like emotion imputed into a far more serious backdrop, and Tarantino tears that backdrop down with his camera with a smile on his face. He is clearly having fun with the movie and the viewers have fun as well.
There is very little character depth in the screenplay and the performances are completely on the surface, especially Eli Roth’s ludicrous take on a Boston brawler with a bat, known by the Nazis as “The Bear Jew.” But then Basterds is not looking for acting Oscars, or any kind of Oscars for that matter. It’s not that kind of movie. However, people said the same thing about Pulp Fiction initially.
Bottom line: this is well-made entertainment for a summer crowd. That being said, it’s on a level above Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Transformers and the like. We’ll see what it looks like by the time summertime comes. Hopefully not much different.
7 out of 10
Are you guys excited to see Basterds? More now, or less?