Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino Directs Weinstein Company, Universal Film
Aug 20, 2009
Quentin Tarantino is a lot of things: a film geek who praises cinema's dregs and wears his influences too much on his sleeve, or the blow-hard director who has bounced from triumph (Pulp Fiction) to ignominy (Death Proof) and back again.
His latest film, the World War II flick Inglourious Basterds, offers a wish-fulfillment fantasy of a group of Jews conspiring to kill Adolf Hitler. Will it be Tarantino's redemption, following the box office debacle of Grindhouse?
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds Stars Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, and Mélanie Laurent
Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt, channeling the hard-bitten Army sergeant from every WW2 flick) commands a platoon of American Jews, ordered to parachute into war-torn France and terrorize the German Wehrmacht.
"Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps!" he barks, and scalp they do, while Raine carves a swastika into the forehead of a lone survivor. Opportunity soon drops in the Basterds' laps: Adolf Hitler himself, plus members of the German High Command, will attend a movie premiere in Paris. The Basterds have a chance to assassinate the Butcher of Berlin, and effectively end the war.
But theatre owner Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) – whose family was murdered by Colonel Hans Landa AKA "The Jew Hunter" (Christopher Waltz) in the prologue – has her own plot.
Which plan will succeed? Will Der Führer live to kill himself on April 30, 1945, or does Tarantino offer a more populist fate?
Despite what Universal/Weinstein's promo posters might tell you, Pitt isn't the star of Inglourious Basterds. Instead, he plays the Tennessee hardcase for laughs – that is, if your idea of a giggle is hearing his commentary while he scalps a Nazi.
Tarantino's favourite character in Inglourious Basterds is clearly Laurent's avenging Judith: her story arc is the most detailed, and she's the focus of a beautiful montage set to David Bowie's "Cat People." With any luck, she should receive some Oscar notice.
Waltz also deserves an Oscar nomination for his role as a cunning Gestapo officer with his own agenda. How many actors can make the act of drinking milk look menacing?
Inglourious Basterds Not the Stars of Tarantino Film
Typically for Tarantino, the titular Basterds are the most underwritten characters in the flick. They get little backstory and little means of telling them apart. On top of that, they're often the butt of the joke.
"Do any of you Americans speak anything other than English?" demands an exasperated collaborator (Diane Kruger) in one scene, and another sequence mocks the Americans' gaucherie while hiding among the more cosmopolitan Europeans. Surprisingly, it's the evil Germans who get some of the best lines.
"Did you get that medal for killing Jews?" sneers Sgt. Donny Donovitz (Hostel director Eli Roth) at an enemy soldier wearing an Iron Cross.
"For bravery," replies the German calmly, knowing he's about to die.
Inglourious Basterds is a lot less violent than previous Tarantino films. However, much like David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, Tarantino has learned the effectiveness of keeping the violence rare and sudden.
That said, his film geekery is still on full display: Tarantino asks us to believe that Winston Churchill would willingly discuss whether Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels is more like Hollywood studio owners Louis B. Mayer or David O. Selznick. Another sequence features Germans and French playing a game where they identify various Hollywood characters.
The Final Analysis
Much like M. Night Shyamalan, audiences have figured out Quentin Tarantino's bag of tricks. But, unlike Shyamalan (whose career will be on Death Row if he messes up The Last Airbender), Tarantino proves that there's still life left in his brand of pulp cinema.
Inglourious Basterds gets an 8/10.
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