DIRTY HALF-DOZEN: CRITICS' EARLY TAKES ON 'BASTERDS' (HW)

By R. Kinsey Lowe

A half-dozen samplings of early critical verdicts on Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds":

"By turns surprising, nutty, windy, audacious and a bit caught up in its own cleverness, the picture is a completely distinctive piece of American pop art with a strong Euro flavor that's new for the director."
- Todd McCarthy, Variety

"The expression on my face in the auditorium as the lights finally went up was like that of the first-night's audience at 'Springtime for Hitler.' Except that there is no one from Dusseldorf called Rolf to cheer us up."
- Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian

"Those things we think of as being Tarantino-esque, the long stretches of wickedly funny dialogue, the humor in the violence and outsized characters strutting across the screen, are largely missing."
- Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

"An intermittently-inspired World War II epic which illustrates both Quentin Tarantino�s brilliance and his tendency towards indulgence ... Tarantino the screenwriter shows off his ear for a witty back-and-forth or monologue with flamboyant frequency, often to the detriment of dramatic momentum."
- Mike Goodridge, Screen

"It�s all downhill after the promising opening scene. We�re given a quick introduction of the Basterds, Jewish-Americans recruited to kill Germans, and Tarantino acquaints us further as one of them, Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), bashes in a few German brains. But that�s pretty much it. Viewers never really see the men being very ... bastardly."
- David Bourgeois, MovieLine

"Not only did I love every minute, if the French projectionist wanted to cue it up and roll it again from the start, I would have sat through the whole film again, with the biggest grin on my face. This is Quentin�s best film since 'Jackie Brown.' It might even be his best film since 'Pulp Fiction.' From the opening image of a French farmer chopping wood from a distance, you�re thrown face first into a war movie that looks and feels like a spaghetti western."
- Sam Ashurst, Total Film