Inglourious Basterds Review

Published by Rene Gauthreaux on: August 24th, 2009

Viewing a Quentin Tarantino film is a bit like riding a Ferris wheel at a traveling carnival; it has been fun up to this point in your life but you are not sure when the guy managing the ride is going to screw up and you will be terribly disappointed (or mangled in a tragic accident). I am a huge fan of Tarantino yet each time he releases a film I fear that this may be the one I do not like (or more importantly the film where he loses sight of the unique visions that have made him so enjoyable for these past 15 or so years). It is my great pleasure to report that the score is now 6 for 6 as a director with his latest romp— Inglourious Basterds.

From the trailer you may be expecting it to be mainly about the core group of ‘basterds’ with some possible back stories to show how each got to their place (which is rumored to show up in a prequel) and while they do play a tertiary role I did not feel like we got to know the Nazi killing posse the way we do with two main characters. The group consists of a mix of well known (Brad Pitt, Eli Roth) to relative newcomers (B.J. Novak, Til Schweiger) that are on a secret mission to kill and scalp as many Nazis as possible which they do with gusto. I wish there was more to say about this group because I feel like they deserved more screen time.

The first we are introduced to is Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans “Jew Hunter” Landa. While his performance is memorable and clearly award worthy I found my self wondering why this role did not go to Tim Roth as it almost seemed like Waltz studied Roth’s mannerisms, speech pattern and expressions as an actor and mimicked him perfectly for the role (down to the laugh). In fact he did this almost so well that at one point (knowing full well that it was Waltz and not Roth) I began doubting myself and wondered if Roth had just aged since I last saw him in The Incredible Hulk.

I can understand that in interest of historical accuracy Waltz was added as an authentic German (even though he is Austrian) but it just made me miss Roth and was, for me, a big distraction. In Waltz’s defense he definitely is a scene-stealer and dances through the film like he the lead role in a musical. His delivery of lines is very lyrical and each minor action seems carefully acted.

Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus (later rechristened as Emmanuelle Mimieux) — who Landa allows to escape in the opening chapter — returns as our protagonist with a plot that presents her with the ability to enact revenge on Landa for crimes committed against her family (a similar theme that ran through Kill Bill). Laurent did not come across as violent or explosive as females tend to do in previous Tarantino films but, like the Basterds, is bent on killing Nazis.  In a character’s heart revenge is a very personal vendetta, so in a way the evil forces win in this story.

The Tarantino trademarked pop-culture commentary (albeit from the 40’s) was present with dialogs regarding movies (which could have come from a conversation with Tarantino himself) and the small talk that peppers a Tarantino film, which makes it seem real and not scripted. This was particularly evident in the bar scene where the Basterds meet their double agent and end up playing a card game with an actual Nazi officer. Carefully placed musical cues and campy title frames reminder that you were in fact watching a Tarantino film, just in case you were confused by the lack of pimps and gangsters. But in case you missed them Tarantino alums Samuel Jackson and Harvey Keitel turn up as vocal narrators and a general via radio respectively.

Overall, a bloodier film than Kill Bill but in this one the violence is realistic and not over the top exaggerated (with spurting severed limbs) so there are a few cringe inducing moments. The death toll on screen was significantly higher than any other Tarantino film, but it is easy to look past this when it is the bad guy Nazis getting killed. As a little social experiment it was interesting to see the how the reactions of the audience to the Nazi deaths mimics the reactions of the viewers of the Nazi propaganda film when seeing US/British soldiers killed.