Quentin Tarantino has never been known for his complete and originality. Yes, he's clever and has remixed the forms he's so fond of over and over again, but that doesn't mean he's come up with anything new. Props to him for being honest about it - he's never claimed otherwise. He grabbed everyone's attention back in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, an American spin on City on Fire, and most recently lent his touch to the kung fu picture with Kill Bill. Tarantino has delved into crime noir, vampire lore and exploitation action with wildly varied results, and with his latest, Inglourious Basterds (a title that's every English teacher's nightmare), he tries his hand at the Big War picture.

Inglourious Basterds is a straight-ahead revenge fantasy, wherein World War II is re-imagined and persecuted Jews have a thing or two to say about how the Third Reich falls. This being a Tarantino film, he finds a way to make cinema key to that end. The film is ever so loosely based on Enzo G. Castellari's Italian schlock war epic - the one that's correctly spelled - but bears far less resemblance to that film than Dogs did to its inspiration. Irreverence, anachronisms and morbid humor abound, and gunfire tells half the tale. This is so not Saving Private Ryan.

In a brazen revision of history, two murder plots sprout within days of each other, with two independent groups plotting to kill Der Fuhrer. In one camp is Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), an American moonshine-soaked commander of a Dirty Dozen-type band of avengers (the Inglourious Basterds) with no goals other than to kill Nazis. In the other camp is Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a young woman who fled to Paris after Nazi officer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) murdered her family. She gets her chance to see him - and several Nazi Party luminaries - dead when the German high command decides to use her small cinema to premiere a propaganda film starring war hero Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl, The Bourne Ultimatum). Raine's Basterds have a spy in actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger, National Treasure) and British soldier Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender, 300) to help them out, while Shosanna goes about her business on her own. Again, this is a Tarantino film, so a lot of the main characters don't make it to the end.

Many of Tarantino's favorite motifs and ticks are crammed into Basterds: The one guy in the gang that's unimpressed with his nickname, the multi-gun standoff, the long, quasi-philosophical debates, the obscure musical cocktail which this time includes a hefty dose of Morricone-style spaghetti western melodies and David Bowie's "Cat People". But there are a few new additions to the repertoire, chiefly the linguistic harmony that respects the story. Germans speak German, the French speak French, the Americans speak English. In any language there's still a lot of dialogue, some of which works and some of which doesn't. Much of Pitt's backwoods Tennessee drawling "wisdom" is less amusing than it should be, and Hitler's rants quickly grow tiresome. But an otherwise nondescript dessert conversation between Shosanna and Landa ends on a brilliantly low-key note, and a sequence set in a tavern full of Nazis, the Basterds, and a nosy Gestapo officer (August Diehl, outstanding in his single scene) is classic QT. The entire segment is fraught with tension, and feels endless - in a good way. When the tension finally erupts in violence it's both expected and surprising. This is also where the film finally hits its stride and cruises into its grand finale.

Tarantino's characters seem to be evolving emotionally, and it has to be asked if we want them to. What began with The Bride's gooey, maternal breakdown in Kill Bill Vol. 2 has continued here, with Shosanna's penultimate gesture to Zoller. The unremitting nastiness of Tarantino's earlier work seems to be slipping (Grindhouse excepted) and it's a little unnerving. But it is progress, and Basterds sees Tarantino dialing down the smug pop culture knowledge in favor of real dialogue - that snaps as much as his words ever did - and opts for restraint where he could have let loose with his patented hysteria. This is noticeable particularly where his female characters are involved. The feminine psyche has always been something of a minefield for Mr Tarantino.

As usual, Tarantino has an ace cast to work with, and the star turn this time comes from Waltz - flawlessly in four languages! - who manages to make the potentially cliched Misunderstood Nazi With A Heart Of Gold into a complete character. Waltz makes Landa equally vile and charming, monstrous and unremarkable. It's difficult to stand out in a sprawling ensemble, but Waltz does. Effortlessly. Pitt, once again, does little to supply more than star power, but when he's not acting via jutted jaw he has his moments.

Inglourious Basterds is not Tarantino's best film; that's Pulp Fiction. However, it's nice to see a filmmaker so dead set in his ways expand his artistic horizons to include actual communication.

Inglourious Basterds opened in Hong Kong Thursday.

(HK Edition 08/22/2009 page8)