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There’s a lot to love about Inglourious Basterds, which makes its shortcomings all the more frustrating. Going all the way back to Reservoir Dogs I’ve said that Tarantino is a better director than a writer, and Inglourious Basterds is further proof. His direction is confident, the production is beautiful, and unlike most modern directors, Tarantino can construct a cinematic set piece in the classic tradition.

In addition, Tarantino elicits terrific performances from most of his actors. The film features a simply outstanding performance by Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa, one of the most villainous Nazis to grace the silver screen in years. Kudos also go to Diane Kruger, Mélanie Laurent, Til Schweiger… have you noticed yet who’s missing from this list?

Quite honestly, I’m not sure what Brad Pitt is doing in this movie other than to get asses in the seats. His character is almost inconsequential to the plot, and his performance is so arch it sticks out like a sore thumb. Indeed, the “Basterds” comprise such a small part of the film that in retrospect the advertising was largely deceiving. Far from being a Dirty Dozen-type action film, Inglourious Basterds is primarily a suspense film, borrowing liberally from Paul Verhoeven’s 2006 film Black Book. In fact, I’m surprised no critics have noticed the similarities.

However, Black Book’s screenplay was tight as a drum - whereas Inglourious Basterds meanders from setpiece to setpiece, and as the film enters the third act it blithely starts to abandon all narrative logic. The plan The Basterds come up with to foil the Nazis is so foolhardy one simply can’t believe they’d attempt it. Would Mélanie Laurent’s projectionist / implied boyfriend really agree to incinerate himself out of love for her? Would a character as intelligent and crafty as Landa place himself in such danger? For a screenplay Tarantino supposedly worked on for ten years, the gaps in logic are numerous. And as the film slowly abandons its internal logic, it becomes increasingly irreverent, as if to say, “It’s all just a joke anyway, so who cares?”

Also, Tarantino’s needle drops - culled from various Ennio Morricone scores, Jacques Loussier’s score to Dark Of The Sun, and even a David Bowie song from Cat People, to name a few - break the tone of the film at every turn. If the aforementioned list sounds like a conflicting mishmash of styles from different eras, imagine how it sounds in the film. Hey Quentin… Morricone is still alive and working, y’know. How about you hire him? Create some music tailored to your film that doesn’t refer to a half-dozen other films?

One of the things I admire about Black Book is that it updated and reinvigorated the WWII thriller with a straight face. Perhaps the difference between it and Inglourious Basterds can be attributed to the generation gap between their respective directors. Verhoeven is in his sixties, and experienced the war firsthand as a child. Tarantino is some twenty years younger, and is part of a generation that prides itself on being self-conscious and ironic. I’m even younger than Tarantino, but for some strange reason my sensibilities are more in line with Verhoeven. I’m not interested in a cinematic post-mortem on the WWII genre - I want to see it revitalized.

There are a number of things I greatly admire about Public Enemies. It’s a beautifully crafted period piece, Elliot Goldenthal’s score is terrific, and while the Luddite in me is reluctant to admit it - I actually liked the digital cinematography.

It wouldn’t have worked if every costume, every prop, every set and location wasn’t perfect, but it truly does feel like the filmmakers were walking around in the 1920’s with a high-def camera. This makes the era seem all the more immediate and tangible, whereas the gloss of film would have kept the audience at a certain distance. Compare any scene in Public Enemies to another film dealing with the same era and you’ll see what I mean. Should every film be shot in this style? Certainly not. But director Michael Mann is a skilled enough filmmaker to pull it off.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t change Johnny Depp’s persona from gentle, quirky and soft-spoken to an aggressive alpha-male living without any care for the future, which is what John Dillinger was. Depp gives it his all, compensating with his good looks and natural charm, but when Dillinger brutishly seduces Billie Frechette (Marion Cotilliard), it doesn’t ring true. Johnny Depp is many things, but intense is not one of them.

The character might have worked if Christian Bale, who plays F.B.I. agent Melvin Purvis, had played him instead. Bale can generate a certain amount of intensity, as anyone who has heard his rant on the set of Terminator: Salvation can attest. Curiously, his character in Public Enemies is almost a cipher - an empty figure onto which we can impose whatever virtues we want. Yet the resolution of his character opens up a thousand questions the film deliberately doesn’t answer. Guess I’ll have to read the book to find out.

Anemic characterizations notwithstanding, the film moves along at a good clip, features a show-stopping tommy gun battle at the end of the second act that rivals Mann’s bank heist in Heat, and there are moments of purely visual filmmaking that are simply terrific - in particular, Dillinger’s demise is beautifully directed. There’s a lot to recommend about Public Enemies to a true cinéaste… it’s technically superb, and Mann’s directoral approach is worthy of your attention. But for the general moviegoing public who want characters they can become invested in, it’s a marginal effort.

The only bad thing about seeing Solomon Kane early is… you have to wait even longer than the rest of the world for the sequel.

Thanks to the good people at Ain’t It Cool News, I enjoyed a special privilege today - I was selected, along with several others, to see a distribution screening for the upcoming film Solomon Kane. Created in 1928 by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan The Cimmerian, Kane is a 17th-century Puritan who roams the world fighting all manner of evil - vampires, witches, devils - armed with a rapier, a musket, and his faith in God. A handful of short stories chronicling Kane’s adventures were published in the pulp magazines of the day, but Howard eventually abandoned the character.

Now, over 80 years later, Kane has finally made his way to the big screen (unless you count Van Helsing, which plagiarized the character to such an extent it’s mind-boggling). As a lifelong Robert E. Howard fan, it pleases me to say that despite some problems with the screenplay, the film is a entertaining, well-crafted adventure.

Actor James Purefoy makes for a terrific Solomon Kane. He sinks his teeth into the role, as he did with Mark Antony on the HBO series Rome, and doesn’t let go, deftly portraying a violent man who strives to be peaceful, but can’t stand idly by while good people are made to suffer. Director Michael J. Bassett not only drew solid performances out of everyone - Purefoy, Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige, Max Von Sydow (!) - but he kept the film moving at a good clip and showed a steady hand with the action scenes.

Kudos must also be given to cinematographer Dan Laustsen (Brotherhood Of The Wolf, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) - the film looks fantastic, evoking the bleak, gritty world of Kane with a great deal of skill and a minimum of digital trickery. The costumes and production design are top notch, and Klaus Badlet’s score supports the film nicely, even if the temp tracks were obvious once in a while (the end credits reek of The Dark Knight).

I hesitate to discuss the plot in any detail since the film won’t be released for some time yet, but a number of story beats were plainly inspired by Star Wars and Conan The Barbarian. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

And since the short stories present Kane as a fully formed character, screenwriter / director Michael J. Bassett was obliged to create an origin story for him. When we first meet Kane in the film, he’s a greedy, barbarous man whose quest for gold brings him face to face with Satan’s Reaper, who tells Kane his soul is forfeit for a life of sin and murder. Kane barely escapes and retreats to a monastery, hoping God will absolve him. The notion that Kane is a reformed sinner isn’t a bad one, but I didn’t like the idea that Kane’s conversion was motivated solely by his fear of damnation (and that’s coming from an atheist). Then again, how do you present a sincere religious conversion to a cynical modern-day audience?

Kane isn’t a big-budget film. It has a modest scale, which befits the character and his world. It’s shot and directed in a classic style, which also befits the character and his world. And while it has swordplay and magic aplenty, it’s a surprisingly character-driven movie. Bassett and Purefoy deserve a great deal of credit for giving Kane enough screen time to change and grow before our eyes. By the time Kane dons his trademark cape, sash and hat, the heroics that follow are all the more exciting because you’re emotionally invested in him.

As someone who saw DARK CITY a year before it was released and lamented what they did to it until the director’s cut repaired the damage, I’ll end with a piece of advice for the powers that be in case they stumble across this review…

Do not re-cut or re-shoot it. Do not add more digital effects. Do not tinker with the color-correction or add rock music. You’ve got a solid little movie on your hands that could easily spawn a trilogy. Don’t ruin it trying to turn it into something that it’s not.

Put simply, do not fuck with the movie - it works.

Those who know me well might ask why I didn’t seek out this film years ago - not only do I love historical epics, I love the films of director Anthony Mann. He forged his talents in film noir with classics such as Raw Deal and T-Men, directed a string of terrific psychological Westerns with Jimmy Stewart - Winchester ‘73, The Naked Spur, Bend Of The River, The Man From Laramie - and in the 1960’s he graduated to the epic film with El Cid, followed three years later by The Fall Of The Roman Empire. Without question, Mann is one of America’s most underrated directors.

According to Hollywood lore, super-producer Samuel Bronston wanted to reteam El Cid stars Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren for Fall Of The Roman Empire, but Heston declined. Feeling they had a top-notch cast otherwise - Alec Guinness, James Mason, Anthony Quayle, John Ireland, Omar Sharif (as the King of Armenia!) and newcomer Christopher Plummer - Bronston and Mann decided to cast Stephen Boyd, Heston’s nemesis in Ben-Hur, as their leading man, and this is the film’s Achilles’ Heel. Surrounding Boyd with such powerhouse actors only serves to diminish his performance, not elevate it. He’s earnest and stalwart, but the moment Mason or Guinness speak, Boyd is completely marginalized. And he’s a poor match for Sophia Loren, who was at the peak of her beauty here. Only an actor of Heston’s stature could have been a convincing love interest for her.

Nevertheless, the film does feature terrific performances by Alec Guinness, James Mason and company. And no expense was spared - they literally built the Roman Forum, and the sight of this massive set filled with thousands of extras will leave you in awe. It’s one of the most stunning physical productions I’ve ever seen, from the sets to costumes to the smallest trinket.

Spectacle aside, the film is literate, somber, and character-oriented. Dimitri Tiomkin’s score sets the tone from the very beginning with a dirge played on an organ. Unlike most epics, which usually grant the protagonists a pyrrhic victory at least, this film is about the decay of a once-great culture and the inevitable destruction of its people. Put simply, it’s not a fun-filled film for the entire family - but if you love a good old-fashioned historical epic, there’s a lot to enjoy in The Fall Of The Roman Empire despite its flaws.

Post Script: Gladiator stole everything from this movie. The only thing they did better was casting Russell Crowe as their leading man…

In my annual pilgrimages to The Egyptian Theatre for their Film Noir Festival, a name that pops up every so often is that of director Andre De Toth. Pitfall and Crime Wave are, in my humble opinion, classics of the genre. His most famous film is undoubtedly House Of Wax, which was actually atypical for him - his output consisted largely of film noir and westerns. So when I saw his name on Day Of The Outlaw, I knew I would be well taken care of.

Day Of The Outlaw stars the perennially constipated Robert Ryan as Blasie Starrett, a rancher on the Wyoming frontier who is slowly being forced out by farmers who want to fence the land. Having spent twenty years clearing the area of thieves and Indians, Starrett refuses to relinquish his claim to the land he ironically made safe for the farmers. To make matters worse, Starrett had an illicit affair with Helen Crane (Tina Louise - yes, Ginger from Gilligan’s Island) the wife of his strongest opponent.

Violence is about to erupt when Captain Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his band of criminals blow into town and seize control. On the run with $40,000 in gold in their saddlebags, Bruhn destroys every gun in town and quarantines the women to prevent his men from mistreating them - but after a month on the run his men are impossible to control. Worse yet, Bruhn is slowly dying from a bullet he took during the robbery. Both Starrett and Bruhn know that when he dies, his men will destroy the town and everyone in it.

To save the town, Starrett decides to sacrifice his own life by claiming he knows a secret passage through the mountains, when in truth there isn’t one. With Bruhn’s silent approval, Starrett leads the criminals into the mountains to die of exposure.

Grim premise, hm? And De Toth makes the most of it. The film is crisply paced, and the black and white location photography is simply gorgeous, vividly creating a sense of cold and isolation. Ryan is, as always, a stolid leading man, and Ives makes a surprisingly good villain, albeit a villain with a conscience. Even Tina Louise acquits herself well, displaying some acting chops she rarely gets credit for. My only quibble with the film is that it fizzles in the last ten minutes. In keeping with the screenplay’s nonviolent message, Ryan never uses a gun on his captors. The climax is essentially a waiting game to see if Ryan can outlast the criminals as they slowly freeze to death. Original, yes - but I was hoping for a bit more oomph in the finale.

My thirst for blood aside, Day Of The Outlaw is a terrific little western. If you see it on cable, or better yet - playing at a revival house near you - go see it.