(Long Island, N.Y.) Much like director Quentin Tarantino’s last movie, Death Proof (part of the 2007 double feature Grindhouse, the review of which you can read HERE), his new film Inglourious Basterds would have been brilliant if the editor had chopped out maybe 30 minutes or so of Tarantino’s long, drawn-out, boring, go-nowhere dialogue along with some of the horribly cheesy and inappropriate music tracks peppered throughout. But that never happened, and as a result we’re denied what would have otherwise been an excellent movie. It’s a shame. But despite this, Inglourious Basterds is still well worth viewing, because when this movie is on, it is on.
A period piece set
in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, Inglourious Basterds chronicles the story-lines of several different groups of characters, all of whom are bent on assassinating the Nazi high command, up to and including that rascally scamp, Adolph Hitler. The first group, known simply as the “Basterds,” are an elite team of Jewish American soldiers led by 1st Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), out behind enemy lines
to kill as many Nazis and spread as much terror as possible. To this end, they scalp all of the Nazis they run into, save one per encounter- but they send that one lone survivor back to Berlin with a swastika carved into his head, a mute testament to his sins. The Basterds are brutal and ruthless, and soon become known as something like boogeymen all across Germany.
Also nursing a grudge against the Nazis is Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a French Jew whose family was murdered when she was still a teen by Standartenführer Hans Landa, aka “The Jew Hunter” (Christoph Waltz), a ruthless SS officer. Now living under an assumed name and the owner of a cinema, Shosanna discovers a means of revenge against the Nazis when she becomes the unwanted object of affection of a young German private, Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). Seems Freddy is a national hero, having single-handedly sniped 300 American troops in Italy, and Joseph Goebbels has based his newest propaganda film on his exploits (and even features Frederick playing himself).
In an effort to win Shosanna’s affections, Frederick arranges for the world premiere of his film to take place at her cinema- a great honor, considering all of the German High Command will be in attendance, including ol’ Adolph himself. But Shosanna, disgusted by Frederick and Nazis in general (can ya blame her?), instead sees this as the perfect chance to settle a blood score. Little does Shosanna know, however, that the Basterds (in conjunction with a British undercover and a German turncoat) have caught wind of the big premiere and have their own plan to bring Hitler down once and for all.
Overall, Inglourious Basterds may just be Quentin Tarantino’s best movie since the classic Pulp Fiction. The characters are interesting, the acting top-notch (Brad Pitt continues to be underrated as a versatile character actor, and Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa is simply AMAZING), the production values are high, and the look and feel of 1940’s WWII France are spot-on. There’s humor, violence, and plenty of intrigue. As for the plot, please note that the trailers and commercials for Inglourious Basterds are kind of misleading- they make the film look like a generic take on The Dirty Dozen, when in fact it’s a slow-paced, character-driven tale of revenge as opposed to a simple action movie. But in the end, I’m actually glad Tarantino tried something different than rehashing old WWII “men on a mission” flicks. Inglourious Basterds is very unique, and in this era of endless remakes and franchises, it’s a breath of very fresh air indeed.
Unfortunately, it’s also very flawed, much in the same way that almost all of Tarantino’s films are. The thing that bothered me the most about Inglourious Basterds was that the individual storylines of The Basterds and Shosanna were genuinely great- what little you actually saw of
them. But because Tarantino wasted so damn much time on scenes with people just going BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH about absolutely nothing whatsoever, he took away from expanding on those storylines. As a result, the flick felt very disjointed.
Example: Some Basterds are impersonating Nazi officers, and discover themselves in a situation where they have to pass muster as the real deal while being questioned by a very suspicious SS officer. Everyone makes nice and they just start blabbing about nonsense, drinking, playing amusing trivia games, and so on. This goes on for at least 20 minutes of actual screen-time. Now, bear in
mind that this conversation doesn’t add anything to your understanding of the characters, the advancement of the plot, or anything relevant- it’s all just fluff. If you want to stretch, I suppose you could argue that getting to see the Basterds and how they deal with pretending to be Nazis in an unexpected and high-pressure situation does indeed provide them with some much-needed development in the basest sense, but the eventual all-too-brief payoff wasn’t worth the agonizing wait. I understand that Tarantino was using these long, talky scenes as a means to build tension, and at times, yes, the conversations were indeed tense because you knew something was EVENTUALLY going to happen, but they just took WAY too long to get there. Hey, Quentin- more story and character development, less verbal diarrhea, okay? Thanks.
The funny thing about Inglourious Basterds is that once the boredom subsides, something cool happens to take up the film’s slack, and I found myself being very entertained once again. And so it goes.
In closing, please be aware that this movie is kind of on the historically inaccurate side, which is obviously done on purpose. You’ll see what I’m talking about when you watch it, which, despite its aforementioned problems, you really should. There was as much right about this movie as there was wrong, and even though I’m torn about the end result, it was still a positive experience. If nothing else, Inglourious Basterds is very original, and I’ll never knock a movie for that. Go check it out.
