Inglorious Basterds is Exhilarating!

Filling the fantasy of what we wish we could have done to Hitler

BY COLIN ENQUIST

Quentin Tarantino worked on the script for Inglorious Basterds for almost a decade. During that decade the exceptional filmmaker has given us: Kill Bill (Vol 1 & 2), Deathproof (part of the Grindhouse double feature with Robert Rodriguez), and a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation two part season finale (which got Tarantino an Emmy Nomination). Not only did he direct these entire but wrote them as well (with the exception of CSI which he co-wrote) and he had minor roles in a few of the films.

This revenge war film that Tarantino has repeatedly stressed is a “spaghetti western but with a World War II iconography” takes place mostly in 1944, after D-Day but before the liberation of Paris. Inglorious Basterds is set in an alternate history of the Second World War.

Like most other Tarantino films, Inglorious Basterds has a cast of movie stars from beginning to end. Some are prominent, taking central roles: Brad Pitt and Eli Roth, others get little screen time: Mike Myers and Michael Fassbender, and a few only lend their voices: Samuel L. Jackson and Harvey Keitel. Tarantino regulars are around as well but it is the new faces in Christopher Waltz and Melanie Laurent who steal the show.

Waltz was nominated (and won) the Best Actor Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for his role in this film. The multi-linguistic actor displays magnificent depth and he is: pure evil, derisive, articulate, intelligent, and absurd. Aside from Waltz, most of the other actors/actresses do not have much screen time. Even the main protagonists in Pitt and Laurent have limited screen time, despite such integral parts to the story. Pitt looks like he is having too much fun as his role of commanding officer of the Basterds.

Tarantino has used extreme violence that always pushes the boundaries and this film is no exception. This is not for those with a weak stomach. It is painful to watch some of the damage done to the human body during the times of war.

Dialogue filled and driven is the heart of any Tarantino film. I have always enjoyed this aspect of his films but I think it hurt this film slightly. Not to say the film would have been better in only English dialect but the constant reading took away from the focus on character reaction to the conversation(s) occurring.

Inglorious Basterds has some very good scenes but one stood out for me. When the Nazis are watching the premiere of “Nation’s Pride” (based off of a character’s exploits in Inglorious Basterds) they are laughing at the 300 Americans dieing on film. This propaganda film makes the Nazis so happy. A little spoiler for the ending here, so skip the rest of the paragraph if you want! Yet at the climax of both films, 350 Nazis (Hitler included!) get shot, are burned alive and caught in a giant explosion, causing the same joyous feeling to come over the audience I was watching the film with. There was no shouting and laughing like the Nazis were but you could tell the reaction was emotionally the same.

I have no knowledge (and I do not think Tarantino knows either) as to why Basterds is spelled incorrectly in the title of the film. During the film though we see Brad Pitt’s character, Lt. Aldo Raine, carry a gun holding with the title written on the barrel, so maybe the title is incorrect because Lt. Raine is possibly illiterate?

This could possibly be Tarantino’s best film since Pulp Fiction. I may throw out the argument for Deathproof to be included in that conversation of best Tarantino film. A brutal film, Inglorious Basterds draws on Tarantino’s strong dialogue to drive the story. Ending with Brad Pitt finishing his “masterpiece”, which may prove to also be Tarantino’s?

4 out of 5