THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX - Germanic Terrorist Angst

After a lackluster weekend of films, I was looking forward to Uli Edel's THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX, about the rise and fall of the Red Army Faction in Germany in the 70s. I enjoy films based on true stories and films about terrorism, so this was sure to be a winner. Right?

MEIN SPOILERS BELOW(en)

THE BMC starts out promisingly enough, giving us the daily life of Ulrike Meinhof, a German upper-middle class reporter, interspersed with the chaos of political protests in Germany in the 1970s. When German police kill a harmless protester, it starts a chain of events that results in the creation of a German terrorist group. Eventually, Ulrike leaves her husband and takes up with the terrorists, training in the Middle East and robbing banks and blowing up buildings. Eventually she and the other leaders are arrested, and new generations of the group spring up, resorting to worse and worse acts in order to try to free the leaders.

All good stuff. However, the film has some major problems, almost all due to the script. One, Ulrike hangs herself in prison about halfway to two-thirds through the movie. She's the character we've been identifying with -- we saw her husband cheat on her, how she couldn't stand by the sidelines when chaos and revolution were going on around her, how she left her children for her cause. So when she dies, there's no one to really identify with. Particularly because all the major characters are in jail at that point as well. So we're watching a jail/courthouse drama intercut with new terrorists doing some truly heinous things.

Two, there are far too many characters. This plagues a lot of films based on true events (like PUBLIC ENEMIES). The filmmakers are so concerned with being historically accurate that they forget about being clear or entertaining. There are dozens of terrorists, some of whom die, some of whom wind up in prison; and it's hard to sort them all out. Combining or cutting characters would've helped, and could've let us focus in on the motivations for some of the characters (like Baader) or the two lawyers who quit practicing law and start robbing and killing.

Three, as a corollary to the above, it's sometimes unclear who people are or why they're doing things. The new generations of terrorists assassinate a banker. I'm not sure why they did that. They also kidnap and later kill a man. I don't know who he is or why they wanted to kill him.

Four, ideology. In the film, the RAF grew up to protest German complacency in the US/Vietnam war (using bases to store/move men and materiel) and in the US/Israel effort. Part of this was national guilt from doing nothing in WWII. However, hearing constant references from Germans to supporting the PLO and other Mideast terrorist groups doesn't sit well; Israel may have done some terrible things in the 1960s and 1970s, but they were also fighting for their survival. And Germans going off on Israel sounds a little Hitler-esque, whatever their actual intentions were.

Five, the film shifts focus, from a sort of fast-paced crime drama to a courthouse drama. And the courthouse and jail scenes are long and boring. We don't know the details of their cases, and their hunger strikes and false accusations of murder (in Ulrike's suicide, for example) aren't particularly interesting to watch. We know that the remaining RAF members have weapons smuggled to them, but almost an hour goes by between the time they get weapons and they commit suicide with them. Why did we have to watch all the stuff that came between?

Six, it's a little hard to identify with people who are committing terrorist acts in the first place. It's a little more palatable when it's people who have a stake in the action, such as Palestinians who have been abused or had family members killed. Watching middle class Germans decide to murder in cold blood, bomb offices, or ask for a Mideast plane hijacking to support their cause isn't something most people can empathize with.

Next, some of the characters' actions aren't adequately explained. A friend decides to drop out of the group in Jordan while they're training with other terrorists. He offers to raise Ulrike's children for her. Not only does she decide to give her children up to a Palestinian orphan camp instead of letting this perfectly nice guy take care of them in Germany, but she and her comrades then try to have him murdered by telling the Arabs he's an Israeli spy. Why? Why did they hate this man so much? A lot of individual operations aren't explained either. We don't know who the targets are or why they're being targeted. Which just ends up confusing.

Finally, the film engages in a sort of fake suspense. The newer members of RAF engage in more violent crimes because of Ulrike's "murder." But it's pretty evident she hung herself -- she was depressed, she was in prison for life, she was marginalized by the rest of her former comrades, she even has a voiceover right before she does it where she says something to the effect of "I can't take it anymore." So we know she didn't kill herself. Then, the film tries to use this again at the end, after the other members commit suicide. And it's played as if it's a huge surprise to the terrorist members; which makes them seem stupid.

A shorter movie that wasn't so ambitious could have worked better. Focusing on Ulrike Meinhof's journey from journalist to terrorist to prisoner to suicide. It would've given us a central character we could identify with and a clear beginning, middle, and end.

ALL ABOUT STEVE, All About Eh

I made a cardinal mistake this past weekend. I'd read the script for ALL ABOUT STEVE a few years ago. I wasn't too impressed. And yet, looking for a movie over the long holiday weekend, the girlfriend and I settled on ALL ABOUT STEVE. If I didn't like the script, odds were, it wouldn't turn into a great movie all of a sudden (although that has happened twice -- MR. AND MRS. SMITH and LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE).

ALL ABOUT SPOILERS BELOW

ABS tells the story of crossword constructor Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock), a 30-something weirdo who lives with her parents. When her parents set her up on a blind date with news cameraman Steve (Bradley Cooper), she's instantly smitten and jumps him in his truck before they can even pull away from the curb. Steve realizes she's a bit odd, but not before politely telling her it's too bad she can't join him on the road. After she gets fired from her job for making an all-Steve crossword puzzle, she sets out to stalk her crush.

There are several obvious problems with the film/script. First, the movie plays out on one level throughout. Mary stalks Steve. She seems to like him solely because he's attractive. We know he doesn't like her -- he finds her annoying. So we're not rooting for the two of them to get together. We don't think Steve will ever come around to liking her, and he doesn't. He just warms up slightly from thinking she's a nutjob to thinking she's quirky. So the whole film's about Mary catching up to reality and learning that Steve's not the guy for her. Which everyone else seems to know from the start. Romantic comedies that work are about people we want to see get together overcoming difficult obstacles in order to wind up together. You have to root for the two of them as a couple. Here, we don't. We're not even supposed to.

There could have been some interesting ways to tweak the premise so the movie actually worked and held some mystery. You could've had Mary changing to attract Steve, and then realizing that she shouldn't have to change for love. But the movie just has her be her weird self throughout. Or, you could've done the movie from Steve's point-of-view, with him as the main character. He sleeps with a girl he thinks is great, and she turns out to be certifiable. She stalks him and puts his life and job in danger (one of the film's funny moments is when Steve mistakes a piece of a car for a machete and thinks Mary's trying to kill him). But the film doesn't really have Steve's job in danger, at least not from Mary. And we know Mary's not trying to kill him.

Second, there are no real obstacles to the film. Mary follows Steve around the country. She hits what could be an obstacle -- a hurricane, which trashes her car. But for some reason, even though the car's just flown a mile in the air, it's driveable. In fact, there are no obstacles at all until the very end of the movie, when Mary falls in a mine.

Third, Mary finds a group of weirdos whom she hangs out with and finds her place with. But they're such mutants, it's a little off-putting. One of them is DJ Qualls, usually cast when the filmmakers are going for a grotesque -- and he's made even weirder by the fact that he carves apples into faces for a living. Really? Mary may talk too much, but she's smart, and she's played by Sandra Bullock (even if she has awful clothes and a bad dye-job). Can't she find some non-freaks to feel at home amongst?

The film works in brief moments -- Mary falling in the well, the gag with the "machete," Thomas Haden Church screwing with Steve by continually telling Mary Steve's in love with her and wants her to follow him no matter what he might say to the contrary. But overall, there's nothing driving the story. Because it's a movie about a delusional woman coming to a very obvious realization -- that this isn't the man for her.

Oh, it's also not believable that a guy is going to blow off sex with an attractive woman just because she's talky. In order for a guy to really leave Sandra Bullock on the side of the road instead of schtupping her, she's have to have a penis or something. And still...

GAMER - Game Over for Originality, Logic

Having worked on 300 and seen the acting chops and personal magnetism of Gerry Butler first-hand, I'm definitely a fan. And I really enjoyed CRANK. From start to finish, it is what it is, a ridiculous, adrenaline-charged thrill ride that doesn't take itself or moviemaking seriously. So by the time your hero's rubbing up against an old woman to generate static electricity to keep his fake heart going or engaging in a fistfight as he falls out of a helicopter to his death, I was totally into it.

GAMER is the latest from writing/directing team Neveldine/Taylor. It stars Gerry Butler, Michael Hall, Kyra Sedgwick, and Alison Lohman. So it's not lacking for acting chops. While the idea's not the most original -- in the future, there's a real-life video game hybrid folks play by controlling death row inmates.; if you survive 30 battles, you're set free; the man who might achieve this is marked for death by the Bill Gates-like video game creator -- it's a good one that's worked before (THE RUNNING MAN, the newer version of DEATH RACE).

LEVEL UP FOR SPOILERS BELOW

Unfortunately, the movie pretty much starts and ends with its premise. The execution is sorely lacking. This is due to several factors.

1) There's no depth to any of the characters. Gerry Butler's a badass, the kid playing him is spoiled, Kyra Sedgwick's Oprah/reporter hybrid wants a story, Gerry's wife Amber Valetta is essentially a whore in a Sims-like game, there are some folks like Ludacris and Alison Lohman who want to stop Michael Hall because he's evil, and Michael Hall is evil. Everyone's a caricature. They don't even bother giving Gerry Butler's Kable an arc. You see in flashbacks that he's on death row for killing someone. The obvious thing to give his character some dimension is to have him be a guy who actually did bad and regrets it; he was a cop or an FBI agent who shot someone in custody due to a personal connection to the case. And it's the biggest mistake he ever made -- it landed him in jail, he's haunted by nightmares, it tore his family apart. And now, the only shot he has at getting out is by killing more people and butting up against that fear. That's some good personal conflict. The guy finds out he's good at killing people, and killing people could be his salvation, but it could also destroy his soul.

Instead, N/T opt for a cheesy and convenient backstory in which Gerry happened to be one of the original test subjects for the brain-controlling technology behind SLAYERS (the killing game) and SOCIETY (the sim game) and Michael Hall made him kill his friend as a test of the tech. Aside from being way too easy -- Hey, Kable's really a great guy and was set up all along! -- there's a major logical flaw here; namely, if Kable was part of an experiment that screwed with his brain and he killed someone while part of that experiment, wouldn't any credible lawyer be able to use that as an excuse or at least mitigating circumstances to get him off or get his sentence reduced from the death penalty?

2) The rules of the game itself aren't particularly clear. This leads to a host of confusion. A person can control a "slayer" through combat. If the slayer reaches a save point alive, he wins. And after 30 battles, you're supposedly set free (although no one's ever done it before). So if Kable's being controlled by Logan Lerman and the team's won 27 battles, why's Kable so great? If I pick up a video game controller and walk Master Chief through Halo 3 on Legendary difficulty, it's not a great accomplishment for my onscreen avatar. When I stop controlling him, he dies. The only attempt the film makes to answer this is a question a guard asks -- "Who aims? You or him?" (the answer, I'm the hands, he's the eyes). That doesn't really help.

Similarly, on the field of combat, there are obvious death row inmates, as well as a team of masked dudes who look suspiciously like the guards that later chase/fight Kable. Why would guards be fighting?

And Michael Hall's game includes basically NPC players who follow a series of scripted actions -- repeatedly crossing a street or purchasing goods -- in the middle of combat. This often leads to them dying horribly, since they don't have guns and don't have anybody controlling them. Now A) no one in their right mind would want to play the game as an NPC, even if they did only have to survive one game to be set free and B) let's assume for a moment that the world the movie sets up -- prison system going broke, this tech arrives, government settles on this as a solution to solve its penal system financial problem -- exists. Nobody would let live people get stuck in a game without a chance to fight and a high probability of dying.

Then there are little logic blips, like the fact that Michael Hall wants Kable dead so much he's setting a giant inmate with no controller out to kill him. But the inmate gets the drop on Kable and can't fire his gun because they're in a restricted area. Really? A Bill Gates type controls everything, including people (we later find out he's basically going to mind control all of society) but he can't override an automatic gun lock for two seconds?

Or why wouldn't Michael Hall just kill Kable if he really reprsented a threat to him in the first place? Or why is Kable a threat? The resistance (Humanz) goes after Kable because they somehow know that Kable was setup by Michael Hall. Which is weird, because they can't verify he's innocent until they hack into his brain and extract his memories. So Michael Hall wants Kable dead, but he doesn't just have a guard shoot him in the face in prison, and he fears him because he might escape and hook up with the resistance who will use previously unknown technology to see his memories? Um, okay.

Then you have Kable escaping the game once he gains control of his body. Michael Hall builds tech that can control your brain, and we've seen a prisoner try to escape jail earlier and get thrown a hundred feet in the air by some invisible force, and yet neither an invisible barrier nor some sort of shutdown procedure occur. A guy as smart as Michael Hall would probably have something in place in case someone escaped his game, like an auto-shutdown that paralyzes or knocks Kable out.

And finally, you've got Michael Hall with more money than Bill Gates and the smarts to implement this scheme and more (he's got nanotech in his head that can control the tech in everyone else's head and plans on unleashing the Nanex to everyone in society) and yet the security on his house is so crappy that Kyra Sedgwick can roll up and tap into some computer at his front door and broadcast Michael Hall and Kable's private conversation for everybody in the world to see? And Alison Lohman can hack into the Nanex network and hook Logan Lerman back up to Kable and have him kill Hall? Not to mention the fact that we've got yet another genius bad guy undone by his penchant for monologuing in front of the hero.

Neveldine/Taylor can shoot and cut the hell out of a movie. No matter what they do, you know it'll never be boring. Unfortunately, so far they've shown themselves to be far better directors than writers. They raise a bunch of interesting issues about control and power and video games and society, but due to the shallowness of the script, they all remain at surface level. Next time, they should let someone else do the writing and focus on the directing.

Non-Movie Post

I thought this was pretty funny, so I'm linking to it. Jian BBQ is a Korean barbecue hotspot on Beverly Blvd. in West Hollywood. And apparently, they've got a thing or two to learn about customer service.

ADAM - A Romance with Asperger's

Saw ADAM last night, a quirky romance about a woman who falls for her neighbor with Asperger's. Probably wouldn't have seen it if the girlfriend didn't offer to treat me to a movie.

AN ASS-FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW

ADAM hit upon a unique premise. I can't recall a love story between a "normal" woman and someone suffering from Asperger's (basically a high-functioning form of autism where the sufferer has problems reading facial cues, knowing what people are thinking, and the inability to pick up on sarcasm, innuendo, irony, or any situation in which words have a connotation as well as a denotation).

It tells the story of Adam, a single electronics engineer with a fascination for space. Adam's father just died; his dad took care of him and helped ease his transition into the world. Without him, Adam's got some problems. His new neighbor Beth seems intrigued by Adam, but a little put off by Adam's rudeness. Eventually, she realizes he has Asperger's. The two date after Adam engages in a couple of romantic gestures -- dangling outside her window in a spacesuit to clean it and showing her a family of raccoons who took up residence inside Central Park. Beth's father faces a trial for some accounting irregularities at his business. And Adam, with his lack of social skills, grills him about possibly going to jail. When Adam gets a job offer in a new town and wants to move away with Beth, Beth's dad (now about to go to jail) tells Adam Beth can do better. Eventually, the two split and Adam makes the move on his own.

Despite some good performances and a realistic script that makes the action and characters feel believable, there are several problems with the film.

First, in any kind of romance-based movie, be it an action film, a drama, or a romantic comedy, if you don't buy that the romance is important, the movie doesn't work. It never seemed believable that gorgeous, rich, smart Beth (Rose Byrne) would date a high-functioning autistic. The film sets up that she went out with a rich asshole who cheated on her and so she's looking for something different. But isn't there a middle ground between rich asshole and almost-RAIN MAN?

The romantic gestures don't offer enough explanation for why Beth goes out with Adam either. She mentions she can't see outside her windows, so he dresses up in his space suit and dangles outside her windows to clean them. Or attempts to. Instead, startling her. Because this was random and ineffectual, it doesn't feel like a big deal or that impressive. In fact, he almost kills herself and doesn't even manage to clean the windows. This could have been remedied with a bit of dialogue about how her last boyfriend (the rich asshole) never listened to her or what she wanted. When she said she wanted tickets to a concert, he even got the wrong tickets. That's when she knew the relationship wouldn't work, long before the cheating. Then, Adam cleans her windows based on an off-handed comment she makes and she's smitten.

Since we don't buy these two would ever date, we don't really care that they break up eventually. That's a major problem, removing the stakes from the movie entirely.

Film also tries to set up Beth's father as a jerk. He tells her she can do better than Adam. But he happens to be right. Adam's not that great. He's nice when he's not freaking out and he knows a lot about space. But he can't hold a normal conversation or interact with her friends and family properly. And he tends to freak out in full-0n child tantrum mode. What's more, since Beth actually doesn't end up with Adam, her father is proven right in the world of the film. Also, this whole dynamic -- overbearing father who's in legal trouble and eventually goes to jail doesn't like her underachieving boyfriend -- seems ripped from SAY ANYTHING.

Finally, the film makes a really odd choice in having Adam go to California by himself for a new job. While there, he suddenly becomes non-autistic -- or way less so. Script shows Adam at the beginning and throughout not picking up on verbal cues (sarcasm about continuing to carry heavy bags by himself) and having severe social anxiety where he won't go out with work friends and fears going out with Beth's. But for some reason, when he gets to Cali, he's noticing a co-worker's face while carrying heavy boxes and he offers to help and he's suddenly going out to bars with his co-workers. This would be fine if this was a normal character arc -- a guy goes from awkward to socially integrated. But it's Asperger's syndrome. Not a character weakness that gets worked out through the plot of the film. The reason Adam has those problems is because his brain is wired differently. It's not like he has one relationship and all of a sudden he stops being a high-functioning autistic. That'd be like a dude with paraplegia moving cross-country after a failed relationship and suddenly starting to walk.

DVD Corner - FALLEN, SPEED, DIE HARD 3 - Thriller Time

Been watching a lot of thrillers lately as "research" for a thriller I'm starting. And some action movies that verge on thriller territory.

BOATLOADS OF SPOILERS BELOW

I'd never seen FALLEN. You'd think Nick Kazan script + Denzel Washington + great supporting cast (Elias Koteas, Donald Sutherland, John Goodman, Aida Turturro, James Gandolfini) + great premise (detective watches a serial killer he caught get put to death; serial killer is really a demon who can jump bodies; demon comes back and frames/torments detective) would equal a great movie. But it doesn't.

First, the film is horribly slow and boring. This thing drags. Directory Gregory Hoblit chooses to use a washed-out, shaky POV shot to represent Azazel, the demon. And he does it literally every time something happens with the demon. So you see this nauseating shot hundreds of times. The plot, as such, is underbaked. You'd think an immortal demon would really have it out for the man who's getting in his way and have a great way to annoy him or kill him. You'd also think the demon would have some sort of big plans after thousands of years. Nope. Apparently all he wants to do is sort of mildly annoy Denzel. Which he does by framing him for some murders. Which could've been good, if that was the first act break. Then you'd have an entire movie of Denzel trying to figure out what's going on (his enemy's really a demon!) all the while avoiding the cops and trying to clear his name. But that action doesn't come until the end of the film, which is too late. Also, Azazel literally has no plan or anything. He's not trying to spark the end of the world (although he does write "Apocalypse" in chunks on various bodies), he's not trying to rule the world, he's not trying to let Satan out of hell. Just annoy Denzel.

The rules are also unclear. Azazel can jump into any body he wants. Except Denzel at the beginning. But by the end of the movie he can get into Denzel for some reason. That'd be fine if Denzel was somehow corrupted and it was all part of Azazel's plan. But it's not setup that way, so it just feels random.

There's no arc for Denzel's character. The obvious one would be a man who lost his faith, and in encountering the supernatural, he gets it back. That would easily mesh with the "action" as it were.

Denzel's got a retarded brother for some reason, I guess so he seems like a good guy for taking care of him. And so Azazel can eventually kill him. Azazel doesn't even seem that evil. He kills a couple people and then Denzel's brother. The film could've upped the body count and made him more threatening.

Finally, there are some really silly beats. For example, Embeth Davidtz is being chased by Azazel in various forms through a crowded street. Instead of Azazel getting in a fast, strong body and running her down, he jumps from body to body. So you've got a "chase" scene where a girl's running and various strangers are touching each other down a line, with the demon body-swapping in serial. All accompanied by a cheesy "whoosh" sound. This isn't cool or threatening, it's just stupid. The demon inside a big, strong guy is possibly threatening; the demon inside an old lady, not so much.

On to SPEED...

I hadn't seen SPEED since the theater and didn't remember it being that great. It's got a fantastic premise and was competently directed. But that was all I could remember.

Well, I was wrong. SPEED is a very good action movie. The premise is just as great as ever, the bad guy's clever, and the obstacles and escalations are great. Keanu gets dropped in a shitstorm at the beginning and things just keep getting worse for him throughout.

There are perhaps two weaknesses in SPEED. Keanu's character (Jack Traven) has no arc to speak of. He's not a reckless guy who learns how to reign it in to keep others safe; he's not a do-er who figures out you should look before you leap.

And after the bus blows up, the movie keeps going for a half hour and gets a bit silly. Dennis Hopper's character is so smart and methodical with his planning of the elevator job and the bus caper that what happens after his plans are foiled seems a bit reckless. He thought far enough ahead to get money away from hundreds of cops and escape onto the subway with a hostage wired with a bomb, but because Traven's chasing him, he loses his shit and kills the subway driver? That doesn't make a lot of sense.

However, with the action, you don't really miss the arc. And there's almost a solid hour of bus stuff just getting worse and worse, so you tend to forgive the movie for the third act. (And Keanu's awful retort to Dennis Hopper after he knocks his head off with a subway light -- "I'm taller.")

DIE HARD 3 marked John McTiernan's return to the franchise. And a great idea in having Hans Gruber's brother come back for revenge on John McClane. And a cool premise with Jeremy Irons running McClane all over town on a scavenger hunt (under threat of blowing shit up) as a distraction to robbing the Federal Reserve.

There's plenty of great action. And screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh does a good job with the action beats, with plenty of smart twists and turns, like the heroes getting out of handcuffs using a metal scrap embedded in McClane's arm from an earlier slide down a fraying cable.

Where the film slips is that McClane has little to no arc -- just warming up to calling his wife whom he hasn't talked to in over a year. So Hensleigh tries to give one to Sam Jackson's Zeus, a racist who hates white folks. Except that Jackson doesn't really start to like white people. He just warms up to McClane a bit. If that situation was played out in reverse, with a racist white guy, people would find it patronizing.

Another problem is that Irons' plot falls apart when you look at it. The first task he gives McClane is to walk around Harlem with a sandwich board stating "I hate N-words" (it actually says the N-word, I'm just being polite). And McClane is nearly killed by a street gang; Zeus jumps in to save him. If Zeus didn't, McClane would die. Now, Irons wants McClane dead. But he needs him alive long enough to keep running goofy errands on the scavenger hunt and keep the police tied up so he can rob the reserve. He plans on killing McClane via sniper at Yankee Stadium at the end of the day. Irons clearly didn't plan on Zeus being there or helping out, so that's clearly a big plot hole.

Another silly bit is that the way McClane catches Irons is... Irons has McClane and Zeus tied up to a bomb on a ship. McClane asks for some aspirin -- Irons suffers from migraines -- and Irons tosses him a bottle. After our heroes get off the ship just ahead of the bomb, McClane looks at the aspirin bottle and it's stamped Nord de Lignes, a big truck stop north of the border in Canada.

Here's the several problems with this.

1) Generally, if someone suffers from migraines, they have prescription migraine medicine like topamax or imitrex. Aspirin and the like don't really help with migraines.

2) I've never known truck stops or any other store for that matter to stamp aspirin bottles with their name/location

3) McClane somehow gets to fly to Canada with his gun and shoot at the bad guys; the US has no jursidiction north of the border. And McClane is a New York City cop, so he has no jurisdiction outside of the city

4) This whole beat is convenient. If McClane didn't ask for aspirin and Irons toss him some and the bottle was stamped, etc., McClane never would have found him. If McClane had somehow tricked this information out of him, that would've been fine. That shows our hero being smart, rather than our hero relying on a happy coincidence to solve his problems.

5) How the hell did the good guys find the bad guys? Presumably this is a major area filled with shipping containers, trucks, etc. The bad guys could just hide out there.

And then you've got McClane shooting an electrical wire with two bullets and dropping it on a helicopter and then saying "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker." Sigh.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - Wrong Spelling, Right Moviemaking

Not too much to say here, because I loved this film. Jews killing Nazis as brutally as possible? I'm in.

SCALPED SPOILERS BELOW

Basically, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is Tarantino's Jewish version of THE DIRTY DOZEN meets Spaghetti Westerns. It's funny, unique, and super-violent. And manages to string together the obvious influences along with a healthy dose of film history love. And for all its quirks, including slapping up a character's name in giant logo and a couple of asides hilariously narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, it pretty much works.

There's no reason why anybody in particular should like a film in which the heroes mash heads with bats, scalp fallen foes, shoot unarmed prisoners, and in which hundreds of people are roasted, shot, and exploded. But you do anyway. Because it's so unusual and so much fun.

The film's strengths are:

Most of the characters are fully dimensionalized, or at least enough for us to like or understand them. Particularly well-rendered are Shoshanna and Col. Landa, the delightful villain. Others, like Stiglitz, you get enough to understand this guy hates Nazi officers and is bound to snap. Brad Pitt's Lt. Col. Aldo Rayne is a bit of an enigma; you know he hates Nazis and is a cruel bastard, but you're not sure entirely why. But Brad Pitt does him with such flair, you don't really card.

Tarantino sure knows how to turn a scene, particularly in assembling all the elements of suspense and then cranking the tension up with everyday dialogue. Whether it's an oncoming basement shootout, Landa interrogating a French dairy farmer hiding Jews under his floor, or Landa and Shoshana sitting in a restaurant eating strudel, these scenes are all super-tense. If and when the violence erupts, it's almost a relief.

And finally, perhaps the film's biggest asset is its uniqueness. For example, when Pitt and crew pose as Italians to inflitrate a Nazi film premiere... Most films would have Pitt and his buddies barely pulling off the masquerade. But Tarantino wisely has them speak atrocious Italian with their horrible accents, and Col. Landa is so aware of it that he laughs hysterically and exposes their plot. It's funny, it's tense, and it's a bold choice that works well.

Plus, you gotta love a film that has Jews killing the shit out of Hitler and the entire Nazi high command.

There is perhaps one minor flaw, but it's an editing decision, not a script problem. Because the film's so long, it seems as if QT cut some of the action for time. So we're treated to Pitt captured, and then he's in a truck with one of his men who wasn't at the premiere. We never find out how BJ Novak got captured or what happened to the rest of the Basterds. But it doesn't really affect anything, because the film's almost over at that point and sailing along delightfully under its own weird steam.