We’ll admit, the Eli Roth-looking torture-porn-y posters and the campy, slightly over-the-top trailer of “Inglourious Basterds,” have taken the enthusiasm out of our sails for Quentin Tarantino’s new WII movie. Or maybe, they’ve just managed our expectations: we’re probably getting something closer to the B-movie movieness “Kill Bill,” or “Death Proof” rater than the rawness of “Reservoir Dogs,” or the greatness his script points to, but that’s ok. Those films are good and fun, but it’s maybe just not the masterpiece hinted at in the screenplay. That’s fine, we’ll just have to live with that.
But asking if it’s “The Worst Movie Ever Made?,” just based on the teaser trailer? Shouldn’t a publication like the U.K. Guardian be above that kind of reactionary and juvenile hyperbole? One would think, but in a recent “review”/ rant of the film based on the teaser trailer (not even a full trailer yet!) the Guardian has given Tarantino’s new movie a full thumbs down.
“Perhaps there will prove to be a level of postmodern self-ironising to this new Tarantino offering, which stars Brad Pitt as second world war soldier Lt Aldo Raine, a Jewish-American determined to take it to the Nazis with extreme prejudice? Perhaps serving up Kill Bill with the Holocaust as a backdrop will be a fabulously worthwhile endeavour? Somehow, though, I doubt it. If this film isn’t the work of a man who not only has nothing left to say, but is revelling in his ability to continue not saying it, then I don’t know what is. That Gorno king Eli Roth is playing one of Raine’s crack troops (he’s the one smirking in the trailer) serves as a clear enough pointer as to where this film is heading (well, that and the fact that Raine’s speech has the customary “I shall strike upon thee with furious anger” cadences). There’s going to be lovingly, lingeringly-choreographed gore galore and, what’s more, we’re going to be encouraged to cheer at it. Because, you see, the victims are Nazis and they deserve it. Being the objects of our blood-thirsty engorgement, that is.”
We agree with the sentiments expressed here, the skepticism therein and the not-so-subtle level of disappointment conveyed , but c’mon now, is this what it had come to these days? We’d bemoan the state of journalism, but it is just a op-ed like blog post (sadly becoming synonymous with easily dismissible rants of zero validity) and not a report or review, but still an inflammatory headline like that? Weaksauce. We would have thought the Guardian of all places, would know better.