INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

I have never been a strong admirer of Tarantino. Reservoir Dogs left me cold, and the world-wide acclaim for Pulp Fiction left me bemused. There was no denying the craft and skill in the movie but the characters and plot were loathsome – as if a world-class chef had made a sumptuous-looking delicacy made of mud and perhaps excrement. Kill Bill 1&2 were the only Tarantino movies I liked – even though they were simply revenge fantasies.

Inglourious Basterds is an anomaly – being utterly different in subject than any of Tarantino's former films. As history it is flatout rubbish, with its Jew-sympathizing and Nazi-hating plot. History is clear – America and most allies were largely indifferent to the plight of Jews, and American corporate and government support lay with the Nazis at the beginning of the war, and only turned against it after Nazi Germany became so powerful it threatened American interests. And after the war the OSS-CIA sought out and protected surviving Nazis, for intelligence, weapons research, and strategic reasons. So the raison-d'etre of the movie – with its depiction of an American-Jewish guerilla group inflicting terror on Nazis, and physically scarring them with the swastika to brand them Nazis for life - is sheer fantasy, despite the movie's claim to be based on real events.

How is it as film? Three of the five chapters are brilliant. The first one - in which the SS colonel dubbed 'Jew-hunter' ferrets out the truth from a French farmer who is hiding Jews by effortlessly gliding from exaggerated, almost obsequious courtesy which only serves to terrify the French farmer more, so that the brusque switch to cold intimidation elicits an immediate confession - is reminiscent of the brilliant scene from Schindler's List in which Ralph Fiennes praises the forced rabbi laborer that he is 'doing well' in making a hinge before ruthlessly changing tone to demanding why the rabbi had only managed a few hinges in the morning. But even there one wonders why the German soldiers don't pursue or shoot the escaping Jewish daughter (Shoshanna), whose survival is no doubt necessary for what ensues.

Likewise the 'Chapter 3' restaurant scene in which the colonel interrogates the theatre-owning Shoshanna (who he almost recognizes) as prelude to the holding of the Nazi premiere in her theater is superb. Not just 'Tarantino dialogue', this is the same cat-baiting-mouse strategy of the 'Jew-hunter'. The Operation Kino scenes are also excellent, particularly the tavern scene which is painstakingly built to show how the best plans can be ruined by trivial unexpected events – in this case the presence of German soldiers enjoying a night off awarded by a superior to celebrate one of them becoming a father.

But despite the brilliance of this scene, which includes card-games inspired by a Satyajit Ray film, giant plot-holes now appear. An SS major who conveniently happens to be in the tavern - 24 miles north of Paris though it is - immediately smells a rat upon hearing the accent of the Brit masquerading a German officer, but fails to recognize Hugo Stiglitz, who we are told is 'known to every German soldier for being the notorious murderer of 13 SS officers', even though he sits right next to him. Further Tarantino resorts to cheap misandry by having revolvers held under the table pointed at 'testicles' with a low probability of accuracy. Despite scores of gunshots fired in the ensuing shootout, no police (civilian or military) or German soldiers appear on the scene, and the remaining 'basterds' are able to escort the surviving German actress/spy out of the place, sans le moindre probleme....

But it is the final chapter which is literally 'unbelievable'. A film premiere at which the entire Nazi leadership including the Fuehrer is present is held without even a proper inspection of the cinema. Apparently the Nazis are ignorant that '350 films of highly inflammable nitrate stock' stored in the cinema are a security risk. There are no soldiers guarding the lobby, and Shoshanna's African helper/lover is able to bring massive rods into the lobby and lock the theatre doors shut with nary a problem, thus allowing the fantasy of a Jew burning the trapped Nazis including 'Hitler, Goebbels. Goering and Bormann' alive (to the flickering image of the gloating Shoshanna). Simply absurd.

Tarantino should stick to doing what he knows best - creating clever, sophisticated junk - or as he calls it - pulp fiction. History seems outside his league.