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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.

Should be moved to Geek Media.

But the protagonists *are* psychotic killers, they’re the dirty dozen done without any restraint for on screen sensibilities. They kill and maim all germans without scruple as though they are equally irredeemably evil people. Which they obviously weren’t, but if you don’t think members of the allied forces committed war crimes, executing POWs and shooting non combatants, you’re mistaken.

Many of the Nazis in this film are irredeemably evil, Hans Landa most obviously, but none of the Nazi high command are given sympathy when they burn to death. Landa’s evil is entirely changeable, he’s an opportunist and will betray the Nazis after years of allegiance to feather his own nest. Interestingly, this reflects the way that the Nazi state really was made of people looking to profit for themselves, they weren’t all idealists. Essays could be written on what Landa’s ideology actually is, he relishes the hunt for jews but then is willing to ally with jewish Americans when it suits him, perhaps he just is a psychopath that latches onto people and causes that enable his cruelty.

Zoller is an interesting character too, he’s clearly a committed Nazi yet he shows moments of being genuinely troubled by his combat experiences and his new found fame for them, but then quickly masks or buries it with his allegiance to the Nazi cause and the pride and righteousness of killing allied troops. In some way, he’s a damaged person but he’s still an unquestionably nasty piece of work, he’s all the prejudices of a Nazi and his act of politeness is shallow. This doesn’t mean we have sympathy for him, it just makes him more complex that a one dimensional murderous Nazi. I doubt anyone felt sorry for him when he dies, or any of the other Nazi characters.

If you don’t like the Tarantino style of people sitting around talking about things in a tense or darkly humorous way, that’s just something his films do. I think the scene where Landa eats cake with the heroine is one of the highlights. There’s a lot of debate as to how much Landa knows or suspects of her in this because the acting and dialogue can be read many ways.

Some of your criticism is valid, if Tarantino is trying to make a point about audiences enjoying violence it’s somewhat lost in the way he glorifies it for his own amusement. He seems to have a tendency to drop words like N——- into his films for ‘artistic’ reasons but mostly just to prove he can get away with it.

I think the ending is genius. I didn’t know how it was going to end when I saw the film, and in the style of most films of this sort, the protagonists have to fail. Imagine if Day of the Jackel ended with de Gaulle being assassinated, you know it’s fiction but you expect some basic reality to be followed. You’re absolutely sure they protagonists have to fail, you’re on the edge of your seat waiting for the moment that the plan is exposed and it all falls apart, and then suddenly it all goes berserk and they win and we veer wildly off established history. Also it has interesting implications for the universe of Tarantino films, we know they share a universe because he claims the do, and there are cross references to things between them. In the world of Pulp Fiction, WW2 ended in 1944 with Nazi high command killed in a cinema.

Thought it was pretty gak to be honest.
Typical QT self indulgent nonsense.
Most of his stuff is though.

By complete coincidence, today I went to the prop display, prior to auction, at the IMAX Waterloo and saw Hans Landa’s uniform.

there's nobody more convinced of QT's genius than QT

In some respects, Tarantino is a genius. His ability to create heroes and villains (mostly villains) that have a depth of character that goes beyond the pieces of action on the screen makes these characters absorbing. Reservoir Dogs is magnificent and the first half of The Hateful Eight could be used as a "how to" for pulp character generation. He's damn good at this, there's no doubt.

He then completely screws up what to do with these characters, over indulges and makes not so sly references in an effort to be the hippest hipster in hipsville. It wasn't impressive when the wannabe kids at school did it, it's not impressive when you're a grown man making movies.

His habit of spending a good amount of time building a character and getting you invested in the story, only to kill them at the moment where we have caught up with their backstory and feel we can invest in their future - that habit is supposed to be shocking and feel like it has impact. It doesn't. It's a cheap trick he's used too many times. I was annoyed with it in the cellar scene in Basterds. And the second half of Hateful Eight, which follows one of the most wonderful first halves of a film I had seen in years, is the pathetic squeal of a man-child who hasn't had a new idea for how to close out a movie in decades.

Inglorious Basterds is a less than mediocre film whose only saving grace is the enthralling Hans Lander. Everything else about it is disposable.

Hasn't he announced that he quit the movie business some time ago? Could be misremembering, but after the fit he threw during Hateful Eight I think he said that he was done directing.

Some gibberish about only making X number of films, and he's getting terribly close to that.

Also his need to put his foot fetish in every movie...

 AduroT wrote:
Also his need to put his foot fetish in every movie...

Feet are sexy, why wouldn't you put that in your movies as often as possible? People who don't like feet are more messed up in my opinion, do you just get disgusted every time you accidentally look to low? If it bother's you so much what would you replace the feet with? A slug like bottom?

Stumps? Flippers? Tentacles? I don't know about you but those all seem less attractive than feet.

In a timely retro review, The Independent calls True Romance Tarantino's best film, partly because he didn't direct it.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/true-romance-quentin-tarantino-masterpiece-anniversary-25-years-patricia-arquette-tony-scott-a8526931.html

most likely the greatest rom-com ever made

QT is a great director and has a love for the medium. But, since his style is so distinct, you usually know exactly what you are getting. I think his revenge films were the most enjoyable (Kill Bill, Inglorious, Django) and he likes over the top violence. But it can get boring after awhile.

He is also doing a new movie, Once upon a time in Hollywood, which seems to be based on the Sharon Tate murder.

Humm - never seen anyone not like this film - It's a masterpiece IMO.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Humm - never seen anyone not like this film - It's a masterpiece IMO.

I've started avoiding this sub forum more and more as its rapidly becoming a place to hear how awful everything is.

Diane Kruger...oh my!

I found it to be one of my least favorite of his works, bit I am not a QT hater like many on this thread.

I saw Reservoir Dogs on first release and again some months later. The interesting thing was the audience reaction changed

The first time, people found the menace and violence shocking. The second time, they found it amusing.

 Easy E wrote:
I found it to be one of my least favorite of his works, bit I am not a QT hater like many on this thread.

I really havn't disliked anything hes ever done. I havn't seen everything he has directed or written though. Hateful 8 I think is my least favorite.

I just found it rather typical Tarantino fare.

A few well written monologues/scenes, with a great cast...in an extremely overrated film. Christoph Waltz carries a ton of that film. I'd rate the majority of Tarantino's films a solid 5.5-7 out of 10, but they're constantly treated as 13's, etc. I think this may stem from my background in theatre and dramatic arts, where I get easily turned off by people trying too damn hard? I'm not sure.

 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.

I liked it up until the alternate universe ending.

I would have been OK with even a somewhat convoluted means to not diverging from our timeline.

My least favorite film of his.

I do find it hilarious that QT is taking shots at viewers that love to watch violence as being akin to Nazis while we are watching a QT film which is well known for that very thing. That took some sack.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
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.

I didn't get the same vibe as you did. I totally didn't feel like I should feel sympathy for the Nazi. Felt more like it was inviting us to join the local antifa cell and bash some neo-nazi's heads. Therefore my avatar.

 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.

He was more referencing classic westerns though, rather than WW2 films, if I recall correctly.

He basically took the styles and motives of Spaghetti Westerns, substituted The Bastards and Nazis for Cowboys and Indians, and called it a day.

I haven't watched a lot of spaghetti westerns, but I've seen the main classics and none of them have anything to do with Indians.

I was just confirming that point that Spaghetti Westerns do not have that many Native Americans shown:

"Likewise, and in contrast to the contemporary German Westerns, few [Spaghetti Western] films feature Indians. When they appear they are more often portrayed as victims of discrimination than as dangerous foes. The only fairly successful Spaghetti Western with an Indian main character (played by Burt Reynolds in his only European Western outing) is Sergio Corbucci's Navajo Joe, where the Indian village is wiped out by bandits during the first minutes, and the avenger hero spends the rest of the film dealing mostly with Anglos and Mexicans until the final showdown at an Indian burial ground."

From the Wikipedia on Spaghetti Western.

Edit: So I think that QT replaced "Bandits" with "Nazis."

Yeah, lazy recollection and writing on my part.

Replacing railroad men with Nazis would have been a much better comparison.