Inglourious Basterds. -3.0 Money Trains

That's right. Minus three. Inglourious Basterds is a big pile of steaming poo that left me feeling angry that I had wasted 2 and a half hours of my life, and angry that I didn't think to say to Sarah that I was going window shopping in the mall and she could call me when it was over.

So, what's the problem? Well, the German-hating thing is getting a bit old. Back in the 50s and 60s when WWII was still fresh in the mind and veterans were going to the movies, the all-German-soldiers-are-evil-Jew-hating-killing-machines stereotype had its place. But WWII kicked of 70 years ago. And honestly, (and this is going to be controversial), isn't it time the Jews moved on, especially considering their own track record in Palestine?

Right, that's the underlying politics dealt with. How about the plot? It was thin, to say the least. A bit like A Dirty Dozen, but carried off with less panache and skill. In fact, the plot was kind of hard to follow at times because of the dragging scenes where nothing much happened. Like the scene in the tavern that went for about 40 minutes (or it seemed that long), where everyone just gets killed. And so a character introduced the scene before is eliminated without achieving anything, either for his mission or the film.

Now the characters were caricatures, one and all, and I don't mind that at all, as it was intentional. But even a cast of caricature should surely having you rooting for at least one character. Even Collateral had you backing the taxi driver a little bit. But one dimensional characters are the least of this film's problems.

How about the humour? People in the cinema were laughing, and I honestly have no idea why. Was someone passing notes? Were they watching a different film? Or are they just so low on the evolutionary tree of life that violence gets them giggling? God, there one joke in the whole thing (the Basterds working out who spoke the best foreign language) and the rest was either obscene levels of violence or overly long conversations about nothing in particular where Tarrantino was obviously trying to build suspense and failing spectacularly (eg, the scene with the chick and the strudel).

Right, I'm about done here. But I have to say this: 4 people vanished. Or maybe I fell asleep.

It starts off with 8 Basterds and 1 leader - 9. They pick up the German guy - 10. They pick up the Pom - 11. Then the 2 German Basterds and the Pom buy the farm in the tavern - back to 8. Two more go down in the cinema - 6. Two are left in the final scene - 4. What happened to the others?

Actually, I don't give a crap. This film was just woeful. Give me Money Train any day of the week. Oh, and as for Tarrantino - he loves cinema, he loves paying homage to other films, everyone says he's a master craftsman. And yes, Pulp Fiction was good. Reservoir Dogs was great. But then he went down this in-joke, pay homage to everything avenue and the results have been pretentious and ultimately really boring. -3.0 MT