'Inglourious Basterds' Review...
Inglourious Basterds is a lot of things. People will love and hate this remarkable variety of different things, but first and foremost, it is a film that exists purely in the parallel universe created by it's director. By now, Quentin Tarantino has been writing and directing films for two decades and he has developed one of the most recognizable and unique directing styles of any director working today. In his latest film, he has taken on a subject that doesn't lend itself well to trailers, which is why I was pretty unsure about the movie from seeing the previews. I just didn't know if the world really needed what looked like a big-budget Nazi-bashing orgy, but the movie is so much more than that, because it's so much less.In a technique that has utterly baffled some movie goers and film critics, he has taken the very real and very serious atmosphere of Nazi-occupied France during WWII and turned it into something that is entirely his own. By doing this, the movie goes back and forth between viscerally painful scenes - like the brilliantly crafted opening scene - with scenes of such bizarrely gleeful comedy that it almost feels that they don't belong in the same movie. Even more, it's hard to argue that the film doesn't come off as something of a revenge fantasy against Nazi, and more personally against Hitler himself, but anyone who ever said that major historical events like WWII can't be given alternate cinematic endings should watch Inglourious Basterds and see what a master director can create by doing it.
So here are the nuts and bolts of it all. A Nazi Colonel named Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), nicknamed "The Hunter," is going through Nazi-occupied France ferreting out hiding Jews, and finds and kills a whole family of Jews hiding out at a dairy farm. One daughter, Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), escapes her family's massacre, and flees to Paris, where she opens her own movie theater. A young Nazi soldier named Fredrick Zoller, a national hero for single-handedly picking off hundreds of Jews from a watch tower, takes an interest in her. Because of his hero status, he convinces Joeseph Goebbels, the Nazi film and propaganda secretary, to move the premiere of the film adaptation of Zoller's heroism to her theater. He just want to make her like him but by doing so, he is unknowingly arranging to bring the entirety of the Nazi high command into the theater owned by a young woman who's family was brutally shot down by Nazi soldiers.
Meanwhile, a group of Jewish American soldiers led my Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt)has taken upon themselves the singular mission of making their way through Europe and exacting such vengeance upon any Nazi soldiers that they come across that their very existence will strike fear into the hearts of the Third Reich all the way up to the highest leaders. In this, they prove successful, but upon learning of the movie premiere at Shosanna's theater, decide that they need to get into that premiere and do some damage, while Shosanna is plotting to burn the place down with all the Nazi high command inside. Neither side knows about the others' plot.All through the movie, you can sense Tarantino's deep love of movies and it's impossible not to have a good time along with him. He has taken a variety of different elements from many different films - from the very title, lifted from a 1978 film that has little other similarities, to the central location of a movie theater, which vividly calls to mind images of Cinema Paradiso - but nothing feels ripped off because the film is absolutely oozing with style, and the entertainment level is through the roof.
True to his form, Tarantino gives us a small handful of characters and infuses them with such depth and personality that they leap off the screen at us, and he displays an enormous level of writing talent that calls to mind some of the best talky scenes from Pulp Fiction. The casting is outstanding, particularly Christoph Waltz as the Jew Hunter, Hans Landa. He has wonderful charm and disarming charisma that transforms so suddenly and completely into a hard-focused, ruthless intensity that his performance overshadows all others in the movie, of which there are many noteworthy. Brad Pitt will put some people off because of his Southern yank accent, which he could not do in a movie that was meant to be taken more seriously, but his drawl fits in perfectly with the environment that Tarantino creates here. Eli Roth has never done anything for me in the directing department, but shows remarkable acting ability here. Diane Kruger, probably best known for her work in the National Treasure films, gives a great performance as a movie star named Bridget von Hammersmark, but the other show stealer is Til Schweiger as Sargeant Hugo Stiglitz. I'm not even going to say anything more about him, but many of the film's best scenes, particularly in the first half, simply belong to him.
I have to say that I was genuinely surprised at a few totally negative reviews that I read after I saw the movie, because I walked out of the theater unable to think of a single negative thing that could be said about it. Tarantino's fans are going to eat this thing up like starving hyenas, but I guess that there are plenty of things in the movie that could be construed into something bad by anyone that wants desperately enough to hate the film. I can't really imagine why anyone would want to do that, because despite being based on some controversial subject matter, this is pure, cinematic entertainment at its best. I suggest, although not sure if I can predict, an acting nomination for Christopher Waltz and an original screenplay nomination for Tarantino, although too much recognition for a film like this has the potential to carry negative connotations about Hollywood to the rest of the world. I'm particularly curious to know how the movie was received in Germany, but regardless, make no mistake. This is the best movie in theaters right now, and one of the best of the year.
The Bean Meter
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