Brad Pitt has arrived in Cannes, France to promote his new movie Inglourious Basterds (yes, it really is spelt like that), which was unveiled this morning in front of the world's press at the Riviera resort's Palais des Festivals. It's a Second World War movie from Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill) about a bunch of Jewish American soldiers despatched on a special mission to ambush, kill and -- eek -- scalp Nazis. Tarantino plays fast and loose with history as Brad's crack troops team up with a Paris cinema owner who hopes to turn her latest film premiere into a fiery grave for German High Command. Tom Cruise's last movie Valkyrie, about a foiled plot to kill Hitler, stuck to the facts and thus failed to deliver the ending its audience rooted for -- but Tarantino plays by his own non-historical rules. Mainstream audiences might be surprised by the amount of dialogue delivered in subtitled French, German and a smattering of Italian, and there sure is a lot of talk crammed into its 148 minutes. While the dialogue isn't quite as choice or quotable as early hits Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, there's a fair smattering of mordant wit, performed by a cast including Eli Roth (more famous as the direrctor of the Hostel movies), Michael Fassbender (Hunger) and Diane Kruger (Troy). Films about Jews in World War Two have traditionally focused on victim stories, but earlier this year Defiance presented the heroic tale of Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied Belarus. Tarantino tells a fightback story that would be similarly inspirational if anything remotely like this had actually happened. As it is, it's a fun cartoon that should satisfy fans but probable make few converts to Le Cinema Tarantino.
heat's film editor Charles Gant is at the Cannes Film Festival. Inglourious Basterds will be released in the UK on August 21.