Tarantino's "Basterds" surprisingly tame war movie

There are a few moments of classic Tarantino tension in the farmhouse when Colonel Landa interrogates the French farmer hiding a Jewish family, in the bistro where an SS officer grows suspicious of a Basterd's German accent and at the premiere, where Landa appears to uncover one of the plots.

Otherwise the film lacks not only tension but those juicy sequences where actors deliver lines loaded with subtext and characters drip menace with icy wit. Tarantino never finds a way to introduce his vivid sense of pulp fiction within the context of a war movie. He is not kidding B movies as he was with "Grindhouse" nor riffing on cinema as with "Pulp Fiction" and the "Kill Bill" films.

Tarantino has been quoted as saying of "Inglourious Basterds," "This ain't your daddy's World War II movie." In fact, it pretty much is. His scalp-hunters are any Dirty Dozen on a mission, the bread and butter of war movies. The major difference is that some fine European actors simply aren't given enough to do.

Diane Kruger's role as a German movie star is close to being unnecessary. Bruhl does have a key role as the war hero who plays himself in a German propaganda movie, but Til Schweiger is little more than a dress extra.

On the other hand, Tarantino can waste time on a scene back in England, where the British officer receives his orders, simply for the opportunity to get Mike Myers into makeup and prosthetics that make him unrecognizable.

Even Pitt, sporting a somewhat overdone Southern accent, and Laurent, the film's two leads, don't get a chance to explore their characters in any depth. They are who they are the minute they appear onscreen, and nothing much changes through the film.

In fact, in your daddy's war movies, men and women often did undergo interesting transformations. So perhaps Tarantino is right.