The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

When hip-hop guru RZA (aka Robert Diggs) scored Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill,” he apparently liked what he saw on set so much he opted to star, write, and direct his own martial arts entry, “The Man with the Iron Fists.” 

Akin to “Bill,” this entry is soaked in 1970s cinema with yellow-splatter-font credits and lots of blood and wonky theatrics to make it all retro. RZA is the titular hero, a runaway U.S. slave in late 1800s China, working as a blacksmith who gets mixed up in a gold theft involving a clan leader (Byron Mann), a whorehouse madam (Lucy Liu), and a Brit knife/gunslinger (Russell Crowe), plus 99 other characters I dare not list. Hence the title, our hero loses his hands but comes back punching. 

RZA is high on an admirable labor-of-love vibe, but “Fists” is fugly and scattershot, with blitzed editing that ruins every fight scene. There’s no majesty or cool factor to the choreographed violence, just chopped-up limbs and blood, and almost all CGI on the latter. 

Worse, as an actor, RZA confuses lifeless with stoic, and that leaves a massive hero hole in a 95-minute film that feels kitchen-sink garbled and amateurish. D+

Django Unchained (2012)

In his near-three-hour blaxploitation spaghetti western homage/ripoff “Django Unchained,” Quentin Tarantino serves up a blood-soaked raw piece of pulp fiction that makes “Inglorious Basterds” and its Nazi history redux seem Disney fluffy. He tackles slavery in the 1850s America and shows it in all its vile, morally offensive code, and does not blink -– a black man is ripped apart by dogs as whites standby cackling, and the “N” word is used as verb, noun, adjective, and an exclamation. I winched, blanched, and shut my eyes at the violence, and the images of African-Americans forced into chains and depraved medieval torture equipment. 

Vulgar and soul-killer upsetting? Yes. On purpose. How can it not be, how can any examination -- even fictional and heightened -- of slavery not make anyone with half a soul cringe, and look away in horror. Shame. But, hell, I say “Gone with the Wind” is far more offensive to the core because it shows slave-ripe America as some kind of utopian Candy Land. It was all good. The South was happy. I hate that film. Tarantino must as well. He fires on all cylinders, his anger at America’s past strong. Conservatives hate this film because it dares show America -– of 150 years ago -- as a moral cesspool no better than Nazi Germany. Leftists such as Spike Lee hate it because they didn't think of this film, cathartic in twisted ways, first. Thank God for Abraham Lincoln, and go see “Lincoln.” These films would make a wild double bill. 

Speaking of Candy Land, Candieland is the name of a Mississippi plantation run by a ruthless land owner (Leonadro DiCaprio) where Django –- a freed slave turned bounty hunter played by Jamie Foxx -– and his killer mentor (Christoph Waltz) seek to free the former’s wife. That’s the gist and final hour of this epic that is bloody brilliant in a dozen ways, a long overdue F.U. to Southern Whites, and their modern GOP apologists who use patriotism as a weapon of hate. 

There’s so much more to the plot, but I would exhaust myself spilling every detail. Cinema master that he is, Tarantino cannot justify the 2 hour 45 minutes running time. He takes a dig at the pre-KKK as the idiot cowards they were and are, but the scene is overlong and kills an otherwise tense encounter between the racists and our heroes. More scenes throughout play overlong or repeat themselves over and over again.

Further, his main characters are not strong enough, nor his plot strands or dialogue. No one here reaches the deep well of Waltz’s Nazi in “Basterds,” or Samuel L. Jackson’s hit man in “Pulp Fiction.” Except for Django’s rebirth as a killer throwing hate and bullets back in the faces of his oppressors, no one else moves an inch forward or backward. We get two over-the-top bloody shoot-outs in the same room split apart by a half-hour in which Tarantino drags his ass around as a slave trader with an Australian accent worse than I could ever mimic. 

In “Basterds,” Tarantino staged a key scene around a dinner and ratcheted the tension so tight, just as my heart was about to explode, his mayhem onscreen exploded. Here, during the big dinner scene, the air lets out, the talk drags on for 20 minutes, then the carnage hits. Then more talk. Then more carnage. Then more talk. Tarantino seems to have written a screenplay in which no idea was bad, and he could not depart with a page. 

So many grand ideas go unrealized. For the first time, I second-guessed Tarantino’s leadership as the Cinema God. See: DiCaprio’s sick twist prince -– and by gosh, he is damn good as a hothead-maniac -– runs a slave gladiator camp. He enjoys watching men of color kill each other in forced do-or-die sport, and his character demands a certain … repayment. Yes, he dies. But that death is cheap, quick, and with no deep wit.

But the real disappointment for me is Kerry Washington as the wife of Django. Great actress. Wonderful. But she is given nothing to do but react -- scream, run, serve, faint, and stand still when a gun is at her head -– after a lengthy buildup that promises a bad ass woman of fire. I wanted to her bash in skulls with the wine picture she is forced to carry, scream and tear apart people. Tarantino bares her body and scars, but not her inner-raging soul, and damn hardy, I know Broomhilda (her name) has one. I hardly believed this character came from the same mind that wrote “Jackie Brown” and “Basterds.” Or the “Kill Bill” series. Tarantino loves women in the best way.

I’m being far too negative. This is not a bad movie. It screams genius, daring, red-faced anger for great lengths. The acting is aces all around (Foxx is deadly cool, and Waltz is clearly relishing every line and twist of his beard), and Samuel L. Jackson re-creates the entire character of the “house slave” as a villain named Stephen. He’s no -– get that name, step n’ fetch it character -– but the true brute force behind Candie’s world. Watch him stand tall at the end.

Tarantino spends so much time making homage to spaghetti-western troupes and bringing in cameos (Johan Hill, Bruce Dern), I wished he focused more on Jackson’s traitor of all traitors, a bent-back man who is a far better power player and con man than Waltz’s bounty hunter. I would have watched another our of Jackson and Foxx going at each other. And sat in fear and awe. Nonetheless, this is near-unshakable film, and Tarantino knows it. Genius? Classic? Must own? No to all three. But unshakable, for sure.

After taking on fantasy Jewish revenge on Hitler, and now putting an African-American in a saddle with guns blasting racist Southerners, one has to wonder where QT will go next: A grindhouse take on Jesus? Or back to gangster-types? Tarantino still remains the most-surprising American filmmaker of our time. Whatever he does next, I’ll be there, eyes wide open. B

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

The last line of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has a Southern hick-accented Brad Pitt -- with the utmost confidence and swagger -- exclaiming: “This may be my masterpiece.” He makes this brag staring directly at the audience. The screen goes black. It pauses. Then the now-legendary orange-font credit rolls; “Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino.”

Wow. Only the man who made “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs” – two of the most defining movies of the 1990s – could have the nerve to end a film like that. And, yet, “Basterds” (the misspelling is on purpose) goes one further: **SPOILERS AHEAD** It literally re-creates history. In this World War II film, not only are there no gun battles or tanks or dogfights, but the entire Third Reich is slaughtered, blown up, and set on fire by the film’s end. By Jewish soldiers. Dig this fellow History Channel junkies: A young Jewish-American soldier (played by Eli Roth, director of several horror films) literally takes a machine gun to Hitler’s face, and blows that toothbrush mustache to bloody, chunky bits. In up-close gory detail. This is a fantasy film, by Yahweh. (Roth has said as much in interviews, saying countless Jewish boys have wished they could personally kill the Fuhrer.) When you enter Tarantino’s world, he is God. And the projectionist.

Oh, and David Bowie is on the soundtrack. Of a World War II film. Again, wow.

Despite all this, “Basterds isn’t quite Tarantino’s masterpiece. But damn close. It’s climax has a few creaky spots as we get a few dozen repeated shots of 300-plus Nazis laughing and cheering at a propaganda sniper film made by Joseph Goebbels. (He dies, too. The way he should have.) Move on, already. As well, there’s not much depth here. Tarantino progressed in the second “Kill Bill” film with some emotional baggage that ruled over the groovy soundtrack, visuals and blood. This is brownie-deep entertainment. (I love brownies. Eating one right now, in fact. I may have two.) Lastly, Mike “Austin Powers” Myers has a WTF cameo that is laughable, but not in a good way.

Still, “Basterds” is pure Tarantino adrenaline and wonderful word play. I loved it. It’s also more seeped in Italian and European film genres then the typical American World War II action film, like say “The Dirty Dozen” – which this film directly pays homage. And for that, I also love it. The credits begin “Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France…”, and sets off on some Sergio Leone (“Once Upon a Time in the West”) cues of enemy soldiers slowly coming up a dirt road, long but fascinating conversations, side quests that dead end, and furious bursts of shocking violence. The music of the great Ennio Morricone is sprinkled throughout to further the effect of its Spaghetti Western origins. This really is a foreign film, with the French, German and Italian languages taking up most of the 150-minute running time.

Pitt, billed as the lead, is not the film's focus. That crown, arguably, belongs to Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa, an uber-suave and giddy Nazi who’s Sherlock Holmes as re-imagined by Satan. Landa makes drinking a glass of milk as evil as anything seen on screen in years. Man deserves an Oscar. He owns this film. Landa (and Waltz) speaks four languages fluently, a gift which will thrash the final mission of our titular heroes.

“Basterds” opens with a quiet scene that has Landa visiting a French dairy farmer, and after an insanely long interrogation, he fingers the man for harboring a Jewish family. The secreted family is killed where they hide, except for the daughter (Melanie Laurent), who escapes in a frantic, blood-soaked mess. She runs off screaming in a scene that brings to mind Wyeth by way of Dante’s Inferno. Damn straight she’ll turn up again. We then get introduced to the Basterds, a group of American and German Jews in occupied France who drill their way through the Third Reich during a three-year tour. Pitt is Aldo Raine, the lead Basterd and Southern American hick who demands 100 “Nah-zee” scalps from his motley team. Roth plays the “Bear Jew,” a baseball-bat wielding Ted Williams fan. All these players, and Waltz will meet at film’s end. Along with a spastic Hitler that would make Mel Brooks proud.

“Basterds” is a film of dialogue. Tarantino is a jackpot writer. In a scene that kills off several off several main players, he has Americans, Brits, and Germans in a basement bar playing “Guess Who?” over drinks. Tarantino draws the scene waaaay out like taffy, until it becomes unbearable. The audience is waiting for something, anything, to happen as “King Kong” and good Scotch is discussed. At just the point where the scene grows almost tedious, guns are drawn, and a blink and you miss it bloodbath ensues. I want to watch the film again just to see how Tarantino manages to pull off these hat tricks of suspense, film worship, and comedy.

And hands down this is Tarantino’s funniest film, despite the backdrop of World War II and the Holocaust. In a highlight scene of suspense and comedy, Landa meets up with Raine, two Basterds, and a German actress/spy (Diane Kruger) at a cinema owned by none other than Laurent’s vengeance-seeking runaway. Attempting to pass as Italian filmmakers, our heroes’ accent mangling sends Landa – and the also audience – into uncontrollable laughter. Landa keeps asking the men to repeat everything they say three, four times. “Graht-zeee,” Pitt says, sucking in his lower lip. Unaware he’s been busted.

On top of all the capital “T” Tarantino moments, the keen kick-ass joy of “Basterds” is its re-writing of history. This is the first World War II film that I have ever seen where I did not know the ending. This is thrilling, nasty, and often funny ride into an unknown past that should have been. Like this year's "Star Trek." Hitler popped himself in an underground bunker? How dull. Why not shot the fucker down. The last scene is gory as hell, and hilarious.

“Inglourious Basterds” won’t recreate cinema the way “Pulp Fiction” did in 1994. It’s not that great. But it’s one of 2009’s best films, for sure. I hate that Tarantino – known for creating strong female characters - kills off his leading ladies in gruesome detail. But he worships these women nonetheless. Against a churning, writhing snake’s head of deathly smoke, Laurent’s dead cinema owner screams from the grave to the dying Third Reich that she is the face of Jewish anger and vengeance. Pretty damn glorious to me. A