Inglourious Basterds (2009)

"I'm French. We respect directors in our country."

Meh. Quentin Tarantino doesn't exactly make bad films- this is still well shot, and remains fun to watch in spite of everything- but I enjoyed Inglourious Basterds significantly less than any other Tarantino film I've seen, and I've seen most. In fact, I'd go as far as to say this film is merely good rather than great, and for a filmmaker like Tarantino that is criticism indeed.

So what doesn't quite work? Structurally and aesthetically it's as clever as ever, with a non-linear yet easy to follow chapter structure and loads of fun set pieces. I love the chutzpah in the cheerful deliberate ignoring of history by having Hitler and all the senior Nazis die in June 1944. The long dialogue scenes are there, too. But this time they fail to sing without the pop culture references. Christoph Waltz puts in an outstanding performance as the main SS baddie, but he's much better in a less cliched role in Django Unchained.

I think, perhaps, it's an unevenness of tone; little touches like Mike Myers' exaggerated plummy accent and, yes, Brad Pitt's entire misjudged performance take you out of the events.Tarantino has shown a mastery of humour and fourth wall-breaking in the past, but always with an assuredness that is missing here. Perhaps it's simply that Quentin Tarantino, master of so many genres, simply doesn't have quite the same sureness of touch when it comes to the Second World War film. Still, I'd like to see him try again someday.

Hostel Part II (2007)

“No, Dad, we’re going to Prague. It’ll be fine. It’s not the Ukraine.”

Sequels, eh? They can (often) be rubbish, or they can be The Godfather Part II. This one is more of a Scream 2, riffing on the tropes and themes established by the original in its gloriously playful, postmodern way. I rather enjoyed it. As with many good sequels, though, I may have enjoyed this more than the original but a lot of the credit for that has to go to the original, which established things that the sequel doesn’t have to.

It’s the same hostel in Slovakia. It’s the same drill, no pun intended. The premise has already been established. What’s interesting is how the film uses the fact that it doesn’t need to do so much exposition to vary things a bit. There are two perspectives; a new set of three American victims- this time all female- and also two paying “customers” who have paid to do the torturing and killing. This latter perspective, in particular, keeps things fresh and deepens the concept; Stuart and Todd are contrasted in that one is nervous and one full of bravado, but things do not turn out as expected. It’s interesting, however, if I can return to my point from my review of the previous film about the depiction of Europeans, that both victims and villains are Americans. All the European characters are pretty much instrumental; it’s the Americans who have the agency. Interesting, too, that Beth is the sole survivor by virtue only of being stinking filthy rich.

The first to die, Lorna, is the virgin, a nice if predictable subversion of the horror film cliché. There’s also more satire of the ignorance of the travellers (“Slovakia? Wasn’t there some war there?”) and possibly a deliberate response to the criticism of producing “torture porn” in the scene in which Lorna is slowly and sensually tormented and bled to death by a naked woman with a sword. It’s a cleverer and more self-aware film than its predecessor. I liked it a lot.

Hostel (2005)

“I am the king of swing!”

Lots of people consider this people the poster child for “torture porn” and, yes, this is another film from the collection of my gore-loving, gorgeous girlfriend. I love her to bits but she doesn’t half like a bit of brutal violence every now and again. For me, such things tend to be a bit meh: I’m not titillated by graphic gore, but nor am I particularly squeamish. For me, it’s a thriller, and I’m judging it as such. Well, mostly. This review is going to be a bit whiny but believe me: I enjoyed Hostel as a thriller. It’s good. If you like a good thriller and don’t mind a bit of gore, you’ll like it.

Before that, though, a gripe. This isn’t directed by Quentin Tarantino, however much Pulp Fiction is shown on screens within the film: he merely “presents”. If there’s an auteur here, it’s clearly Eli Roth, who writes and directs. Why, then, is Tarantino’s name all over the bloody thing?

Another gripe, too: I don’t like this film’s depiction of Europeans. I suspect it isn’t deliberate, but some disturbing American prejudices about Europe show themselves here, at least to my European eyes. First we see Amsterdam, the uber example of Godless, secular Western Europe (although, as one line points out, the hedonists we see in Amsterdam tend not to be Dutch), and then we see Slovakia, a country whose tourist industry is probably not overly enamoured with this film. I suspect it’s more subconscious but intentional, but the subtext seems to be that European Godlessness, sexual openness and social democracy is immoral, bad and likely to lead to people being cynically tortured to death for profit. I should probably emphasise again, mind: I don’t think this is so much overtly intended as a latent prejudice finding its way into the narrative. Still, it’s the one big problem I have with this film. And yes, there are bits of dialogue which clearly satirise the American protagonists’ lack of understanding of the places they are travelling to, even though one of them is an Icelander, but I think the point is still valid. And, interestingly, all this reminds me of the conversation about McDonalds in Amsterdam that we hear in, of all films, Pulp Fiction.

One last gripe: the opening titles are so long that the film takes a million years to bloody start. All that aside, though, I actually loved this film. If you can stand the gore (there’s one particularly icky scene involving an eye), and one rather implausible coincidence towards the end of the film, you’ll enjoy Hostel.