briefly noted

Only Tarantino would dare or even want to write a pastiche western in which a film critic (Michael Fassbender), a film star (Diane Kruger), and the proprietress of a cinema (Mélanie Laurent) bring down the Third Reich…Tarantino’s love of the medium expresses itself as a kind of formal greed. The choice between montage and fluidity, between Eisenstein and Welles, has no appeal for him; he wants it all. The film is a sustained feat of choreography and composition, a model of crispness. And just as it alternates between matchsticks and mountains, so it moves both gently and briskly, at some points demanding patient trust, at others our amazed vigilance. As ever with this director, there are problems of incaution and excess. The film is too long and too violent. Often, dialogue scenes are pushed past the point of maximal tension and into monotony. But going too far is a risk inherent in going anywhere useful…