Inglorious Bastards

While the world awaits Quentin Tarantino's much-hyped sort-of remake, Madman are doing some exploitation of their own by releasing the original version of the cheap'n'cheerful Italian war film (whose original title, Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato, actually translates as That Damned Armored Train). Inglorious Bastards follows five soldiers – convicted defectors, thieves, even murderers – who escape from a van en route to military prison and decide to high-tail it to Switzerland to wait out the war. However, after spending half the film creeping about avoiding both their own side and the enemy, they unexpectedly fall in with the French resistance and end up being mistaken for the crack team of American saboteurs tasked with taking out the German army's heavily-armed train-cum-military-laboratory and retrieving a prototype missile gyroscope. Cue lots of 'splosions, death-defying stunts, and hundreds of Nazis who fortunately need only the slightest nudge to fall unconscious.

The performances have all the subtlety of low-budget 70s Italian cinema (although American blaxploitation star Fred Williamson is typically awesome), and the apparent decision to do all the English dubbing and foley recording in a phone booth was an interesting one, but it's as fun as it is slight.

Extras Trailer, commentary by director Enzo G Castellari; featurette with Castellari and Tarantino.

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