Inglourious Basterds at Cannes: our first reaction Pictures

My initial impression of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds - which finished here an hour ago - is that the film is a richly enjoyable dramatic action-adventure, surprisingly restrained in terms of style and flourishes but still a full-flavour Tarantino experience. You can hear his authorial voice throughout but not to the point where his personality swamps what's on-screen.

Deviating very little from the screenplay that leaked before shooting last year (right down to a title logo that's the same handwritten scrawl as on the cover of the script), the film weaves together its few simple narrative strands and characters efficiently and with a minimum of fuss, moving the audience swiftly to the story's grand climax. There's no fussy flashbacking or timeline-juggling; indeed, apart from a few digressions to introduce a couple of characters (or explain the flammable properties of nitrate film), the plot proceeds straightforwardly. Anyone in love with classic WWII films will find this right up their street.

There's a simplicity at the film's heart that makes it possible to see how Tarantino got this ready in time for Cannes having only started shooting last August. The film is composed of a small number of discreet long scenes - mainly dialogue-driven with flashes of action - that are set up and played virtually as chamber-pieces. To that end, the Tarantino film that this feels most like is probably Reservoir Dogs, albeit with the whole of Nazi-occupied France standing in for a single warehouse set.

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