Inglourious Basterds

Last night I decided to venture down to my local movie house to catch the latest from the always entertaining Quentin Tarantino. My thought like many other viewers concerning Tarantino is that his first two films, Reserviour Dogs and Pulp Fiction are undisputed masterpieces and that any later work by him doesn’t measure up but is decent none the less. Inglourious Basterds continues this trend.

The film follows two main story threads, firstly there is the story of Shosanna Dreyfuss (Melanie Laurent), hell bend on getting revenge on the Nazis for the murder of her family and secondly there is the story of the Basterds, a group of American soldiers lead by Lt Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), hell bend on getting revenge on the Nazis for the shear hell of it. Gradually these two story intertwine with one another leading the way to a hugely spectacular and brilliantly edited climax (which is much in debt to the prom scene in Brian DePalma’s Carrie) in which a cinema full of Nazi’s is burnt down and even features Adolf Hitler himself being shot repeatedly in the face and then shot repeatedly some more until his face is in pieces.

Rest assured Tarantino doesn’t skimp on his trademark violence, in fact this is probably his most violent yet. We get to see Nazi symbols carved into people’s face with knives, fists being shoved down throats, people wincing majorly at gun wounds and even Nazis being scalped right down to the brain. This is true ultra violence that may make even the most hardened viewer cringe.

There is no denying it, this film portrays the Nazi as caricature villains. However Tarantino also find room to create sympathy for Nazis. One scene has Eli Roth beating a Nazi to death in a flamboyant manner with a baseball bat whilst another Nazi watches in horror knowing that he will die next. We also feel Nazi sympathy for German war hero Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) who must forever live with the Nazi Stigma.

From a performance point of view the cast here is pretty strong. Brad Pitt and Eli Roth play their roles with the perfect balance of malice and humour although throughout the film there is no stand out performance. Tarantino once again recycles music from his favourite artists and effectively incorporates them into this film. One musical moment that stuck out was at the beginning in which a farmer is hiding Jews under his floorboards and a Nazi General comes to question him, then after a while he realises they are hidden under the floor. At this point the intense music starts up and a squad of Nazi troops come in with guns blazing and annihilate the Jews.

However despite all that was good about this film there was one major issue I had with it, which is as follows: In previous Tarantino film one of the impressive aspects was the chemistry between the actors as they discuss various aspect of culture (remember the quarter pounder with cheese). This was always a highlight however in this film they devote too much time to having formal conversation or discuss pompous French cinema and they also natter on for far too long. I feel that Tarantino is just retreading old ground albeit in a different genre, I also feel he is running out of things for his characters to discuss. This therefore make it one of the weaker entries in the Tarantino cannon.

None the less I would recommend Inglourious Basterds for all it has to offer and if you’re a fan of Tarantino’s work then it is a great way to kill 2 hours. Light years behind Reseviour Dogs and Pulp Fiction, not as good as Death Proof or Kill Bill and about as good as Jackie Brown.

4 STARS