Xenomancers wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
So the film was on Netflix. I gave it a watch because iam a fan of Tarantino’s work and have liked a lot of his films. However I really did not like this film.

The problem is partly the source material he’s using. Iam quite aware both of WW2 and films about WW2; which he is referencing here. Sure you can do comedy on WW2, but I thought his slant on it was tasteless and offensive.

It’s pretty neatly summed up in the bastards speech about killing nazis. I felt the director was being critical of the dehumisation of the Germans in WW2 movies and using every opportunity to play up how they have a human side. He belabours this point throughout the film. Why does the Jew at end have to show herself as a super villain cackling maniacally as she burns Nazi officials in a cinema? This is qualitivly different to Django or Hateful Eight where the heroes righteous vengeance takes precedence and they are certainly not being vilified as monsters. To say that killing Nazis is vulgar or uncivilised (this being a charicature) is a non issue. Tarantino acts as if the protagonists are psychotic killers rather than treating their hatred with any real sympathy. He gives far too much empathy to the perpetrators and hurls far too much criticism at those who fought against them.

Structurally the film becomes repetitive. Nazi comes into room. Has tense chat. Hilarity ensues. Lather, rinse, repeat. It got very boring, very quickly.

He has the Nazis in a film laughing at the gratuitous violence of a propaganda film. I took this to be a bash at his target audience. You can’t really playfully call somebody a Nazi, especially when you are the one making the film. Also it is not the same if it was an American sniper as he seems to imply. Using violence to destroy the Nazi regime saved countless millions of lives and corrected the course of human history; it is to be petty to reduce that down to “oh you shouldn’t enjoy GIs shooting Germans because any violence is bad bad”.

There’s a feeling of “it’s been done”. His depiction of Hitler and Churchill for example feel by the numbers and boring. Wolfenstein 2 did a much better job of selling a satirical parody of the character whilst still making clear how bad the guy is.

I almost feel like we watched different films. I feel showing that Germans were just humans sucked up in all the craziness was kind of a theme in at least 2 scenes in particular.
#1 is the scene where the Bastards had captured some German soldiers. "Bear Jew" Comes out and says "Did you get that medal for killing Jews?" - The commander says "Bravery" as he prepares to sacrifice himself to protect his fellow soldiers. Then the subordinate German scared out of his mind - immediately gives his fellow soldiers and when asked what he will do when they let him go he says "I will go home and hug my mother" showing these guys don't have a deep attachment to Nazi ideas - they are just caught up in this crazy mess off a war.
#2 In the bar scene. You see a German solider celebrating the birth of his son. His comrades all partaking in the celebration not doing your typical "Nazi" stuff as they play at drinking game.

It seems to me you just don't like QT's style - which is REALLY big on tense monologs with gratuitus violence filling up in between more monologs. I happen to enjoy that very much. You actually get a chance to see some really good acting in scenes like that.

In Django (which I also really enjoyed) I didn't see the humanization aspect as in the above 2 examples. At some times it did feel like there was too much senseless killing of whites just to show a black man getting his revenge (which he did well deserve) especially in the scene where a wounded white man is caught in crossfire and just keeps getting shot - like we are supposed to laugh at a man being brutalized. I really didn't like that scene. The movie had some really good scenes though. I just don't see how you could have these critisizims of Inglorious Bastards and not of Django.