This fast and funky “Inglourious Basterds” international trailer is what most Quentin Tarantino fans have been waiting for. “That’s more like it!,” is the thinking.
It’s fun, features blaxploitation funk, a few scenes we haven’t already seen and some humor not evinced in past trailers. It should make Tarantino fans more excited. However, for those that like to complain about trailers that try and sell an entirely different movie — and there are many of those people out there, including us from time to time — here’s your prime example. This basically takes all the violence and fast-moving parts and jams them together with propulsive ’70s funk and yes, it totally works. But it’s not the picture Tarantino made and its not the picture that we saw at Cannes. Some are convinced that the upcoming August 21 cut of ‘Basterds’ is going to be drastically different and much more exciting than the initial reports, but we’re not buying it.
Harvey Weinstein has already suggested there’s probably going to be a version with minimal cuts that is either shortened and or extended by 7-10 minutes, and the way, the jenga, building blocks of this script and story were framed, you can’t just all of a sudden radically change it (if you’ve read the script even you can probably figure this out already). Therefore, ‘Basterds’ is still going to be the slow-moving, chatty talk fest with outbursts of Tarantino-esque violence we’ve seen. But expect something closer to “Jackie Brown,” than anything else he’s made in terms of languid pace. That said, some will still love it, no matter what, and that’s cool, everyone filmmaker needs their devotees, but we’re just saying: don’t let this one change your expectations too much. Good trailer though, for sure. Way to sell it TWC (or Universal international or whoever cut it).