Feature Film Review - Inglorious Basterds

Rating:

Quentin Tarantino applies his trademark, too-cool-for-school style to history class in the stunning new Inglourious Basterds. His undeniable geek love of exploitation film married with his fanaticism for foreign cinema makes for one memorable night at the movies. An outrageous, beautiful and funny trip for the spoiler-free filmgoer, IB is chock full of goodness for fans and doubters alike.

Poorly marketed Stateside as a WWII action flick starring Brad Pitt, this nearly 3 hour ticket to Tarantino Land offers much more than the usual war movie mainstays. To dismiss it out of hand is to be oblivious to his undeniable talent as a filmmaker. His requisite cross pollination of motion picture genres remains an identifying mark on his work, but here he layers and paces his pulp fiction chapters with an authority and conviction last seen in the underappreciated Jackie Brown.

Pitt indeed stars as Lieutenant Aldo “The Apache” Raine, an American by birth / southern by the grace of God soldier who recruits a band of bloodthirsty brothers to infiltrate occupied France in the early 1940’s. His crew of Jewish assassins go about the Nazi-killing business, “…and cousin, business is booming”. The Allied forces, meanwhile, have begun Operation Kino – a conspiracy set up to decapitate the German command (including Hitler himself). A Jewish woman posing as a simple French theatre owner has also set her own plot in motion to avenge the murder of her family. The various plot threads and characters come together at her cinema, and the rest is rewritten history.

Pitt making it clear that he wants Nattzies
D-E-A-D dead.

Tarantino crafts this propaganda Americana with a slow and steady hand. Subtitled, dialogue-heavy sequences grow to an almost unbearable tension before exploding in shocking mini-climaxes. His typical pop culture references are absent, however, making him work even harder to build better characters from the ground up. His use of preexisting movie music to fill the speakers with spacious sound nicely fits the vividly violent and vibrant images onscreen. The result is an homage to spaghetti westerns and European cinema that illustrates his flair for bringing the art house to the masses.

The depth of his characterization is amazing, considering such a large cast. The standouts include Melanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, the young woman who escapes a Nazi slaughter at the film’s beginning. Her subsequent secret identity is not lost on Nazi commander Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), known as “The Jew Hunter” due to his wolfish detective technique. His is an all-time great screen villain, who proves as funny as he is fearsome.

Despite Pitt headlining, he shares screen time with the rest of the main players equally, but provides the bulk of the film’s funny stuff. As his fellow Basterds-in-arms go, horror film director Eli Roth appears as Donny Donowitz, the baseball bat wielding “Bear Jew”. More entertaining (and given less to do) is Til Schweiger as Hugo Stiglitz – especially following his awkward 70’s B-movie style introduction. Also seen briefly (but to great effect) are Michael Fassbender as a British lieutenant and Diane Kruger as screen starlet Bridget von Hammersmark.

Early critical reactions have been typically split considering Tarantino’s “love or hate him” reputation, but in the egomaniacal director’s own scripted words, he might already imagine this his “masterpiece”. And for the first time in nearly a decade, he might just have something there.

Walt is Senior Writer for www.featurefilmreview.com. Email comments to walter (at) featurefilmreview (dot) com.