A Review of Inglourious Basterds

In summary: It's not really my thing. Spoilage happens.

Yesterday was my wife's birthday, and she decided that she wanted me to take her to the movies. She wanted to see "Inglourious Basterds", the latest Tarantino film. Apparently, one of her friends had told her about it and she wanted to see if the friend was describing it correctly, or some such. We saw it at the Alamo Draft House at West Oaks Mall. I had potato skins and a Cobb salad and some iced tea that I would come to regret. My wife had fried pickles, the barbecue quesadilla and the Gunness milkshake.

To say that Quentin Tarantino is one of the defining movie directors of our time is to damn with faint praise. However, I was less impressed with this effort than I could have been. The story was interesting and the movie was violent, but the pacing was glacial. I estimate that the plot was better suited to a 23-minute "Hogan's Heroes" episode than a 149-minute big-screen movie.

I suppose that was deliberate. My understanding of Tarantino is that he is considered an actors director, and good acting requires screen time in order to emote. However, I have to wonder about the amount of time spent justifying German and French characters speaking English (only a few minutes, to be sure) when the entire scene in the basement bar is not only nonsensical, but no attempt is even made to justify completely irrational behavior on the part of serious professional protagonists. Surely professional spies, and any spy that remained alive in Nazi-occupied France for two years would be a seasoned professional, would have aborted the meeting before any of the bad stuff had a chance to happen.

The poor British officer served only as cannon fodder for the spaghetti-western gunfight in a basement. He, and that scene, could have been left out of the movie entirely and an hour or so taken off the running time with no loss to the plot or the characterization. Supposedly competent characters suffer huge lapses of judgment and the whole thing didn't work very well for me.

Not that the movie was especially bad. No, I didn't want the three hours of my life back like I did with "Masterminds", and the film did have its moments. Tarantino films always have their moments, it's just that they were too few and far between for my taste. I also learned that eating salad doesn't really work in a darkened theater.