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Now, this isn’t one more big-screen comic book. As the masterly opening sequence reaffirms, Tarantino is a true filmmaker, with a deep respect for the integrity of screen space and the tension that can accumulate in contemplating two men seated at a table having a polite conversation. IB reunites QT with cinematographer Robert Richardson (who shot Kill Bill), and the colors and textures they serve up can be riveting, from the eerie red-hot glow of a tabletop in Adolf Hitler’s den, to the creamy swirl of a Parisian pastry in which Landa parks his cigarette. The action has been divided, Pulp Fiction-like, into five chapters, each featuring at least one spellbinding set-piece. It’s testimony to the integrity we mentioned that Tarantino can lock in the ferocious suspense of a scene for minutes on end, then explode the situation almost faster than the eye and ear can register, and then take the rest of the sequence to a new, wholly unanticipated level within seconds.
Again, be warned: This is not your “Greatest Generation,” Saving Private Ryan WWII. The sadism of Raine and his boys can be as unsavory as the Nazi variety; Tarantino’s latest cinematic protégé, Eli (director of Hostel) Roth, is aptly cast as a self-styled “golem” fond of pulping Nazis with a baseball bat. But get past that, and the sometimes disconcerting shifts to another location and another set of characters, and the movie should gather you up like a growing floodtide. Tarantino told the Cannes Film Festival audience that he wanted to show “Adolf Hitler defeated by cinema.” Cinema wins. –Richard T. Jameson
Product Description
Buy Inglourious Basterds at Amazon
Buy Inglourious Basterds at Amazon
One of the great pleasures of Quentin Tarantino movies is the wonderfully inventive casting that he employs. In PULP FICTION, he revived the career of John Travolta, made Samuel Jackson a star, pushed Bruce Willis into another echelon and even helped get Ving Rhames off to a good start. In JACKIE BROWN, he burnished Pam Grier & Robert Forster’s careers. In KILL BILL, he reinvented Uma Thurman and reinvigorated David Carradine. Even in DEATH PROOF, he introduced the world to the amazing stuntwoman Zoe Bell and gave Kurt Russell the kind of part he’s missed out on for too long.
And now, wonderfully, in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, he’s introduced the American viewer to some stellar European actors, namely Melanie Laurent and particularly Christoph Waltz, now an easy favorite for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Tarantino also frequently tries the patience of his viewers with his rococo dialogue and insistence on constantly reminding us that we’re watching a movie. In PULP FICTION, all his “habits” were fresh and new to most viewers (because, really, how many of us had seen RESERVOIR DOGS before we saw FICTION?), but over time, we learned that Tarantino was often just a little too pleased with his own screenwriting and often too pleased with his own directing. In a completely off-the-wall piece like the priceless KILL BILL films, everything worked to form a crazy-quilt whole. In INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, he’s too clever for his own good at times.
BASTERDS tells the completely untrue story of how World War II might have ended had a group of bloodthirsty, highly trained American Jews been allowed to infiltrate Nazi occupied France with no mission other than to take Nazi scalps. Oh, and how that mission needed to collide with one fateful night when all the top leadership of Germany attended the gala opening of a new propaganda film held at a movie theatre owned by a beautiful French girl who was actually a Jew who had escaped a massacre that had taken her entire family and now she’s bent on revenge at any cost. And of how her goal coincides with that of an undercover British agent who just happens to be a German film scholar and a German double agent who happens to be a movie star.
I know that sounds a little confusing. To Tarantino’s credit, the plot as laid out in this 150 minute film is actually easy to follow. In fact, he’s put everything into easy-to-digest chapters. It does ask us to believe that every important member of the German government & military would all assemble in a fairly public place at one time…but if you can get past that hurdle, there is much vicarious pleasure to be had in watching WWII reinvented by Tarantino.
By far, the best part of the film is Chapter 1. It features Waltz as SS officer Col. Hans Landa in what is easily the most chilling portrayal of a Nazi since Ralph Fiennes donned the uniform in SCHINDLER’S LIST. Fiennes role (and that entire brilliant movie) were for altogether different purposes. Landa comes off more like a Nazi Hannibal Lecter (without the strange dining preferences)…he’s a bit of a lone wolf in his own party. He’s feared by all, because he has a wonderful BS detector that helps him root out deception at every turn. In the opening scene, which plays out like a delicate one-act play, Landa comes to a humble French farmhouse and speaks with the owner. We know the owner is hiding Jews beneath his floorboard, and we’re pretty sure Landa knows it too. Just how he gets that information, through one of the most tense interrogation scenes you’ll ever see, is a joy to behold. You literally find yourself not breathing. I leaned forward in my seat. And yet there is never a raised voice, nor a threatening gesture. The screws are applied through intensity of manner. Waltz instantly makes his character a classic. Tarantino the writer has crafted brilliant dialogue, and Tarantino the director films it all with rare taste and simplicity, and Waltz knocks it out of the park.
The rest of the film is more uneven. While Brad Pitt is a goofy delight as Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds…it’s a performance that is more campy than believable. His Basterds, including folks like director Eli Roth and B.J. Novak from TV’s “The Office” are fairly interchangeable. And strangely, we look forward to them conducting KILL BILL PT. ONE type mayhem, yet they actually use relatively little screentime showing them in action. There is one short, effective scene of their own brand of interrogation…but mostly we have to take the word of other characters (like Hitler himself) that these guys are wreaking havoc on the Nazis.
And during one jarring moment, we are introduced to one of the basterds with a blast of `70s era Blaxploitation music and a `70s era title card. Why? Yes, it was funny…but it took everyone totally out of the spell the movie was weaving. Just as having Michael Myers, in thick but unconvincing makeup, play a British officer hatching a scheme to blow up a movie theater, was very distracting. Myers accent is impeccable, and he plays the part straight…but he’s still unmistakably Myers and many audience members snickered when they recognized him. Very distracting.
It’s as though Tarantino doesn’t quite believe that he can make a straightforward film and have it be riveting. Too bad…because when he gets out of his own way (as he mostly does in the climactic sequences of the film), INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is a cinematic treat. The gorgeous settings and lovely costumes even gave Tarantino a chance to show off and have it fit the tone of the film…but he still insists on going off the rails. “Hey, this is a Tarantino movie!” he seems to want to shout at us. And this causes him to get in the way of the stunning Melanie Laurant, who plays the vengeful theater owner. I’ve never seen her before, and she is an entrancing presence, whether in casual slacks or a gorgeous formal red dress. She dominates the final portions of the film.
I had a great time at this film, and I recommend it fairly highly. But with 10 minutes less of the sometimes too clever dialogue and 5 minutes less of Tarantino’s showboating, and we might have had a true classic of suspense. See it, though, because the two performances I mentioned are worth the price of admission…heck, the opening scene is worth it.
I really didn’t get bothered by the very long talk scenes like most people on this page seemed to be. Don’t expect this movie to be very accurate, its merely partly Quentin Tarantino’s fantasy version of Nazis vs Jews and uhh: The Basterds. I really think some people take most of these movies for granted too much and need to appreciate the dialogue and this fantasy story for what it is. Although this film is based on real events. But again, it does not have to be completely accurate. Yes, this movie is not for everyone. People who are not familiar with Quentin Tarantino’s violent movies need to consider at least doing some research about him first and the roles he was responsible for producing, writing and directing before complaining about how violent some of these scenes were in Inglorious Basterds. Not for the defensive people who don’t like watching blood and gore movies, although that only occasionally happens every once in a while in this new Q.T. release. Inglorious Bastards is smart, funny and dark. Definitely worth owning on DVD once its released. Although I’d prefer you to rent this movie first to check and see if Inglorious Bastards is right for you. But its personally a classic in my book. Regardless of the long talk scenes. Because I enjoyed those scenes too.
Inglorious Bastards made me a fan of Q.T.. I started renting all of his older classics after seeing this movie. Let me tell you I love all of his films so far, the best movies Q.T. ever made I think are Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction and Reservior Dogs. Oh, and just to warn you DVD and Bluray freaks that only review the product and not the movie its self: just pretend I’m reviewing the theatrical release edition before you start complaining.
By the way, Christoph Waltz diserves an Oscar, not just an Oscar Nomination but an actual Oscar in his hands thats for certain. Christoph Waltz is the main highlight of this fantasy film. I call it that because Like I said before, its Quentin Tarantino’s fantasy version. Look at all his projects from the past. Theres nothing really new hear, but Quentin Tarantino does get the job done. Despite the negative reactions for Inglorious Basterds.
Inglourious Basterds is supposedly about Nazi-hunting in World War II, a revenge fantasy where Jewish-American guerillas (or terrorists, as the Nazis point out) are tasked with spreading fear and loathing throughout France. Led by the rustic Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the Basterds have but one task: to each collect 100 Nazi scalps. Please note: this review contains spoilers.
One might think, given the title and the trailers, that this is an action film filled with the occasional machinegun dialogue Quentin Tarantino is famous for. It’s quite the opposite: a series of measured vignettes in which the tension is ratcheted up to feverish heights, then explodes in quick, messy violence.
The opening scene sets the stage: Han Landa (Christoph Waltz), AKA “The Jew Hunter,” does what he does best in France. As such, he is the nemesis of spies and revolutionaries hiding in plain sight. Landa hunts down Shosanna’s (Melanie Laurent) family in a terrifying exchange that culminates in the death of her family. Out of mere whim, ego, or simply being true to his hawk-like nature, Landa lets Shosanna escape. Her survival will have grave repercussions for the German war effort.
These two plots, the Basterds and Shosanna’s revenge, eventually intertwine when Hitler and his entourage arrive to view a special showing of a Nazi-propaganda film (Stolz der Nation) in Paris. The film stars Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), a Nazi war hero who singlehandedly killed dozens of enemies from a sniper tower.
Tarantino never just makes a film to tell a story, as evidenced by the obvious digressions from history he takes with Basterds. He films a vibe, an expression — in doing so, Tarantion comments on the nature of the cinema and our own humanity. And this time, he’s aiming his camera at the audience.
You see, this film isn’t just about Nazi hunting, or Pitt’s funny accent, or the tension between agents who know their social repartee will end in blood; it’s about violence in the movies and how we glorify it. And Tarantino is merciless as he judges every person involved with the film guilty:
The producers are guilty: Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) is a simpering suck-up who is far too enamored with the approval of his audience to see how vile his film is.
The actors are guilty: Actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is a duplicitous murderer who shoots an unarmed man in cold blood. Zoller, the star of Stolz der Nation, has no stomach to watch his own murders taking place on the big screen but is only too happy to bully a woman with his affections.
Even the projectionist is guilty: Shosanna is so consumed with her revenge that only in killing a man does she finally see his humanity.
But the most guilty of all is the audience in the theater watching Stolz der Nation. They are shot, burned, and blown to bits at the end. That was the goal, of course – to kill as many Nazis as possible, right? It’s just a goal that doesn’t seem quite so laudable if you happen to be a member of the audience.
From the images of soldiers dying in the Nazi propaganda film to the graphic scenes of Nazis being scalped, Tarantino holds up a mirror. Are you enjoying this, he asks? Because if so…
You’re the basterd.