INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

      

-->    I really try hard to approach a film with an open mind and ignore industry gossip or buzz.  I offer this preamble because I know that a Quentin Tarantino film will feature grisly violence that often seems more sensational than dramatically necessary.  So I worked hard to go into neutral because the director’s work is often quite interesting.  Usually. 

     World War II and evil Nazis hooked me right away.  A renegade band of men who sought out the perpetrators of ‘crimes against humanity’, killed and then scalped them, sounded ripe for the Tarantino spin.  And spin he did.  Not only did he set out to rewrite world history he sexes it up with arch melodrama and corn ball dialogue that wouldn’t pass in an intro screen writing class.  He even has Brad Pitt, usually terrific, set his jaw a-la-brando in the ‘Godfather’ and speaks in the most hopeless hillbilly accent that contributed to the unraveling of the sudsy ending.  Hey, I really hope to surrender to this film but Tarantino’s self-conscious manipulation of the story kept pulling me out the movie. 

    The one saving grace was the performance of Christoph Waltz.  He savored his Jew-hunting mission with a salivating gusto that brought new meaning to the word psychopath.  He stole the film but not my heart.