Inglorious Bastards

With Tarantino remaking this film I felt the urge to catch the original before the remake. Although having watched it and reading the plotline of QT's effiort it seems like QT is homaging rather then remaking, which is probably a good idea. Straight remakes suffer from comparison regardless of quality.
Anyway the original turns out to be a fine WW2 adventure that readily encompasses that retrospective b-movie quality that becomes more populist daily.
A group of army criminals on their way to incarceration or the firing squad managhe to escape during a Nazi air attack and try and make their way to Switzerland. They inadvertantly wipe out a crack force that has been sent to carry out an 'important raid' and end up doing the task themselves. It's a suicide mission but regardless of their 'criminal' ways they haven't forgotten the reason for the war and readily accept the task; obviously with a full pardon as their reward.

Director Enzo Castellari yet again proves himself as a top notch Euroaction director and gives us tight direction and generally exciting battle sequences. I have a feeling that even with a huge budget behind him he would still produce B movies, but I say that not to knock him. He had his field, he knows it and delivers wqhat he is good at. He manges to gain the audience sympathy for what is basically a group of self-serving sociopaths incredibly well. During the air raid half the criminals get shot by thier own army while trying to run for cover - point well taken Enzo, and we now want them to succeed. There is a strange love subplot that rattles a bit as the Bastard involved is one of the least likeable of the bunch and he is the only one to escape pretty much unscathed. One hopes he finds redemption after the cameras stop rolling and returns yeas after year to honour his fallen comrades.

Refgardless opf minor quibbles Inglorious Bastards is a highly enjoyable Dirty Dozen rip-off that (I'm guessing) can be returnd to time after time. And I haven't even mentioned the skinny dipping German women with machine guns!!