For many of his fans, the road on which Quentin Tarantino took them with his last flick Death Proof, was an all too bumpy one. Leaving the grindhouse style behind him, he pays homage to an even older genre with his latest effort – the war film.

A band of US soldiers find themselves in Nazi-occupied France during World War 2. Led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), they only have one mission: to kill as many Nazis as possible. This directive has led to them to receiving a rather fitting nickname – the Inglourious Basterds.

After much killing of Nazis, they hear news of an event that could claim them their biggest scalp of all, that of Hitler’s. He is to attend the premiere of Goebbels’ latest propaganda film; it’s taking place in a small cinema, thanks to the recommendation of heroic Private Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), who has taken a shine to the owner of the cinema, Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent).

As far as the Basterds are concerned, it would virtually end the war in one fell swoop if they managed to blow up the Fuehrer and a couple of hundred Nazis das boot. But unbeknownst to them, there are others with similar intentions, keen to make a deadly impression at the film premiere themselves.

If the idea of a renegade group of US soldiers running around Europe killing Nazis sounds eerily familiar, then you may well be thinking of 1967’s classic The Dirty Dozen; if you’re are, then yes, you’re right, the films do have a lot in common. The only real and significant difference is that The Dirty Dozen had a cast including Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas and Donald Sutherland; basically a who’s who of that generation’s Hollywood A list.

That’s not to say that the casting isn’t good in this feature; it does have one of the biggest stars on the planet in Brad Pitt, after all. The difference is in personality.The Dirty Dozen, just like its earlier numeric offering The Magnificent Seven, is a film where character is intrinsically balanced with story. Audiences cared what happened to the Dozen despite their dirtiness. Actually, the dirtier they were, the more they were loved. In short, they cared what happened to them.

Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs is almost the antithesis of these films, but ironically with the same outcome. Audiences lapped up the darkness of his ‘coloured’ characters, despite their violent tendencies. The main factor for this is that they had huge, larger than life personalities, making them not only enjoyable to watch, but also highly memorable.

It’s equally surprising and disappointing then to find that Tarantino has created a bunch of nondescript characters to be his Inglourious Basterds. They are simply faces that do as they are told. They are given no back story, no rationale for doing what they’re doing, but more importantly, they have to rely on a collective personality, because as individuals they are completely devoid of any.

BJ Novak is one of the said Basterds, who has the ability to deliver the driest of comic lines – as anyone who has seen him in the US version of The Office can testify to. Unfortunately, he may have only one or two lines to deliver here, none of which are at all memorable; this is a real underuse of talent.

All in all, it’s a completely lost opportunity, as this could have revised that star-driven, character-rich genre of old, and given it the bloody twist that Tarantino could have offered in a throw of a knife – so why didn’t he?

That’s not to say the film is without merit. Mr T knows how to keep an audience on its toes. The opening scene alone, featuring the interrogation of a dairy farmer by an infamous Nazi ‘Jew hunter’, is a heady concoction of intriguing dialogue, supported by a scenario that will obviously end badly, but it’s more of a matter of when instead of how.

There’s also a chance that you could well find it in the World Cinema section, as the majority of the dialogue is spoken in German; so if you don’t like subtitles (shame on you), then consider yourself warned. However, he doesn’t just use it as a gimmick; in places, the language barriers provide key elements to the story.

Tarantino has once again got the casting spot on. Perhaps the only real disappointment is with Brad Pitt; in truth his role feels more like a cameo appearance if anything. His Aldo Raine’s is more caricature than character. The real stars are the European contingency, led by an incredible turn by veteran Austrian actor Christoph Waltz who plays the said Jew hunter Hans Landa.

There are echoes of Olivier’s ‘White Angel’ Szell from Marathon Man in his performance; he has a disconcerting charm about him, one that can manifest into a removed brutality in the blink of an eye. Waltz, who has primarily made a name for himself on German television, blasts everyone and everything off the screen with this tour de force part. Pitt can only grin and bear it in defeat.

Despite some classic Tarantino moves, there’s an overall feeling that something is just missing. It could be the dialogue, which isn’t up to the usually sharp standards we expect from a Tarantino flick. There’s little in the way of humour too, with the film running mainly on a fuel of empty bravado. Even Mike Myers, in what feels like a homage to Doctor Who’s Brigadier, doesn’t make the most of his role as an English general.

Whatever it is, it prevents the film from being anything near Tarantino at his best. No one will be disappointed with the fact that such a creative mind is pushing his talents in storytelling in a different direction, it’s just the final result that could leave audiences wishing that there was just that little bit more to Inglourious Basterds than there is.