Cannes Reactions to ‘Inglourious Basterds’

Published by Jeff Leins on May 20, 2009

Quentin Tarantino’s newest film, Inglourious Basterds, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday.  Here are reactions from reviewers and comments from its stars.

At a press conference introducing the film, Tarantino called the WWII epic his contribution to the war film genre, or “a fairy tale and Jewish wish-fulfillment fantasy.” The story involves a squad of Jewish-born Nazi-hunters called the Basterds.  One of “the basterds,” director-turned-actor Eli Roth, called it “kosher porn” and something he’s “fantasized about since [he] was a child.” Brad Pitt, who plays the team commander Lt. Aldo Raine talked about how he met with Tarantino to discuss his role.  “When I woke up, there were five empty bottles of wine and I guess I committed because six weeks later, I was in uniform,” said Pitt.

Then critics lucky enough to see the first public screening weighed in on the less-than-factual film.  According to the reports, the film clocks in closer to three hours and almost half needed subtitles for the German and French scenes.  The reviews generally seem complimentary, but Inglourious Basterds isn’t likely to win the festival’s competition and another coveted Palm d’Or for Tarantino.  However, it’s possible he may re-edit the film before the theatrical release on August 21, 2009.

Here is what the reviews are saying:

Empire echoed the fantasy element Tarantino described, calling the movie “an action cartoon” and a “joke-y, boyish, play-acted war-game fantasy.” It acknowledges the film as not being very deep with play-acting talents rather than emotional characters.  Then the review praises the best performance as Nazi soldier Hans Landa (a.k.a. “the Jew Hunter”) played by relatively unknown Christoph Waltz.

The BBC calls it “a comic revenge fantasy” and says the director “has made a glorious, silly, blood-spattered return.” It also says Pitt isn’t the star of the show and once again applauds Waltz.

Variety says “it is defiantly an art film, not a calculatedly mainstream entertainment.” The deliberately misspelled title is “an artistic flourish,” the director told reporters.  The trade refers to aspects as “masterful”, “ingenious,” and “Tarantino at his absolute best.”

The Hollywood Reporter was much more negative than most, writing the film “continues the string of disappointments in this year’s competition.” It says, “for a war movie there is very little action” as if confused by the amount of dialogue in a film by Quentin Tarantino.  THR also points out the film’s “dramatic problems” not fixed in the decade-long script process and the small parts played by major movie stars.  “The film lacks not only tension but those juicy sequences” where characters riff on a subject.  It concludes by lamenting the lack of “interesting transformations.”

On the other hand, TotalFilm loved every minute, anointing it “Quentin’s best film since Jackie Brown. It might even be his best film since Pulp Fiction.”