I wasn’t what you would call a quick convert to the Church of Tarantino. I remember when Pulp Fiction came out and I fully admit to thinking the ad campaign for it made the film look stupid. My freshman year at the University of Minnesota I lived on the St Paul campus which had its own movie theater. While I can brag that I watched Clerks there before you even knew it existed, I turned a blind eye to Pulp Fiction when it played there. Even that summer, when I was home and working at a movie theater, I did my best to ignore the marketing for it. Why would I care about a bunch of has-beens and never-weres with bad haircuts?
Soon enough I learned the error of my ways. I watched Reservoir Dogs and was so impressed that I finally was rather intrigued at what Pulp Fiction was going to be like. Luckily, I knew several clerks at my local video store and they loaned me a screener copy of the film so I could see what all the fuss was about.
Now I loved movies, and I quite enjoyed working at a mainstream theater, but Pulp Fiction was probably the first indie film that blew my mind (sorry Sex, Lies and Videotape) to such a degree that I began to actively seek out lesser seen films, and especially Independent films. Now I watched plenty of crap, but lucky for me Pulp Fiction helped usher in a New Age of independent film making in the US, so I had not only plenty to pick from, but I saw numerous great films as well.
Now I can understand the complaints about Quentin Tarantino (he “steals” his ideas from other directors/films, he ushered in a wave of over stylized films lacking in substance, he’s a crappy actor etc) and in varying degrees I think they are valid, but I have admit I am a big enough fan of both his films and his penchant for recognizing barely known films that I can easily gloss over his faults. My reactions to his films tend to be so strongly visceral that I just assume that if he likes it, or if he made it, I will enjoy it. This brings me to THE Inglorious Bastards.
As the movie going public now knows, Tarantino’s next film is called Inglorious Bastards. From what most have surmised, it will be a loose remake of the exploitation war film which starred Bo Svenson, Peter Hooten and Fred Williamson. Other then those fuzzy details and inferences, no one knows much about Tarantino’s version outside of that it also focuses on World War II and Brad Pitt is in it for an undetermined amount of time. There is also a high probability that many many Nazis will be killed.
Of course, much of the movie going public, me included, doesn’t know much about the original film either. So when the greatest movie critic in the world (Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune), and all around wonderful human being (Ed note – Due to this act we here at Where the Long Tail Ends are now contractually obligated to refer to Colin as the greatest movie critic in the world until the end of time) loaned me his copy of The Inglorious Bastards I was quite excited at the chance to watch the original before seeing Tarantino’s bastardized version. Get it? Bastardized. Because of the title. Piss off.
Bo Svenson is a bastard. Peter Hooten. Bastard. Fred Williamson? Also a bastard. Point of fact, everyone in this movie is a bastard of some kind. Though some more then others. But the ones anyone cares about are the inglorious ones.
It is quite evident early on that Tarantino must be making a very loose remake of this film. While the trailers hint at the Inglorious Bastards as some sort of kamikaze unit recruited by the US military to infiltrate German lines (can we say, The Dirty Dozen?), The Inglorious Bastards has a far different plot.
Instead of being recruited, these soldiers are actually military prisoners, though the charges aren’t entirely clear, though Fred Williamson is charged with killing a superior officer, which he contends he did because the man was a racist. The other detainees are various incarnations of rabble rousers, petty thieves, scum and villainy. It’s an odd group, and one that stands out by not being particularly likeable. And as they are loaded aboard their transport to caravan to the closest military prison you aren’t given much of a chance to any sort of attachment to such a collection of rogues before all hell breaks loose.
When the caravan is attacked by a German aerial force it doesn’t take long for the prisoners to fall into the role of selfish bastards. Seeing the ambush as a perfect opportunity to escape, The Inglorious Bastards proceed to overtake their guards and escape the Nazi patrol. Fleeing the carnage for what appears to be safety, the shit then gets real.
The bastards soon capture a lone Nazi trooper, who thankfully speaks English and is dabbling in pacifism, when they come across yet another Nazi impediment. But this one is actually American special forces who have disguised themselves as Nazis as part of a dangerous mission being co-ordinated by the French resistance. French resistance, ha! Unaware of this, The Inglorious Bastards proceed to wipe out both the Americans and their Nazi sympathizer. Having eliminated the American troops, the group is left with only one option, impersonating the soldiers who are impersonating soldiers, creating a Russian nesting doll styled plot line that would be cool if it didn’t actually exist.
But while the premise is ludicrous, it marks the jumping off point for a truly absurd war film that against your better judgment, entertains the hell out of you. In one key sequence the bastards wander upon a platoon of female Nazi soldiers, who for whatever reason have decided to abandon their post and nakedly frolic in a river. While the producers clearly saw this as an excellent way to showcase sixty breasts in a single frame of film, the bastards saw it as an opportunity for diplomatic “immunity”. And while the scene plays out to what appears to be a trashy conclusion, Fred Williamson barrels into the scene, clearly alerting the women that the men with American accents are actually Americans, and the film begins its shift from trashy to exploitation in the blink of an eye, as thirty topless women take up machine guns and open fire. It would be surreal if it wasn’t so, well, jiggly.
It’s that utter lack of that and go for broke style that eventually won me over. The cast isn’t going to win any awards, the script is shoddy even at the best of times and if you don’t check your brain at the door you might not survive through the first reel. But make no mistake, The Inglorious Bastards isn’t content to merely fail, it wants to go out in a blaze of glory. And I couldn’t help but like it for it.
