Lopez Blogs

Faithful travelling companion suggested going to see the latest Quentin Tarantino epic, the title of which I won't mention here in case it messes with my blog-filter at work....although I didn't know anything about it and hadn't read any reviews beforehand, so I didn't know what to expect.

"IB" turned out to be a very good movie indeed, set in World War II with the usual parallel-storytelling that you would expect from Tarantino by now, and a fine international cast.

The film begins with a German colonel Landa, known as "the Jew Hunter", who kills off a Jewish family being hidden in a dairy farmer's home. The daughter of the family escapes, takes on a new identity and is subsequently seen running a cinema which is chosen to host the premiere of a film made by Goebbels about a German war hero - played by an old favourite of this blog, Daniel Brühl of "Goodbye Lenin" fame - and this gives her the opportunity for revenge against the Nazi hierarchy attending the premiere, as she plans to burn down the cinema during the film.

None other than Brad Pitt, as Aldo Raine leads the "B******s", a fearless group of Jewish-American scalp-hunters who will stop at nothing to get revenge on the Nazis, carving a swastika into the forehead of the Germans whom they do save. Although I've never quite understood Mr Pitt's popularity, I have to admit that he sparkled in this role.

Despite the serious subject matter, it wouldn't be a Tarantino film if it didn't have some very black comedy: the scene when Raine's fellow fighters reinvent themselves as Italians only for the multi-lingual Landa to rumble them is a particular treat.

The ending of the film sees Tarantino taking liberties with history as only he can; and of course, it being a Tarantino movie means there's lots of look-away-from-the-screen-now violence.

The fact that I sat and watched a 2½ hour movie without dozing off says a lot for my attention-span: it's a relentless and compelling war movie reinvented as spaghetti western, and it's well worth seeing.