Inglorious Basterds (R)

When your name can define a movie, that’s when you become a great filmmaker. Tarantino is more than a person at this point, it’s a style. When you say something is Tarantino-esque you mean that it blends genres and it mixes a serious tone with black comedy. That is the perfect way to describe “Ingourious Basterds.” Tarantino’s venture into war movies and starting his alternative history trilogy which is made up of this, “Django Unchained,” and an as of yet unnamed film. This is Tarantino on form as always.

The plot involves around entirely different people or groups plotting to kill Hitler. There is Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a French-Jew who escaped the Nazi military in the brutal first scene in the movie. She now operates a small cinema in urban France with her lover, Marcel. She runs into Nazi war-hero Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl); Zoller takes a liking to Shosanna, but her hatred for the Nazis means the feelings aren’t mutual. However, Zoller insists on having the premier of a movie based on his exploits to be held at Shosanna’s cinema. Shosanna, with the help of Marcel, hatch a plan to burn the cinema to the ground with all the members of the Nazi high command in it.

The other plot involves The Allied forces. ‘Operation Kino’ is the name given to the mission. It’s pretty simple; blow up the cinema with everyone in it. The plan was the brainchild of a German actress/British double agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) with help from British soldier Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender). Help is also provided by an American guerilla-like force called ‘The Basterds’ led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). The only Nazi officer who can see this coming is the main antagonist Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). As you can see, the plot can get a bit confusing. However, it does justify the two and a half hour runtime.

Before “Inglorious Basterds,” Tarantino did “Deathproof,” an enjoyable but flawed film that led many to believe that the director had lost his touch. Then he releases this. I’ll say it right now: “Inglorious Basterds” is amazing. It is still a war film but you can laugh. It has classic Tarantino all over it… The way it blends genres like western and noire to a certain extent…The way each character introduced has their own unique personality.

Nothing sums it up more than the opening scene: Col. Hans Landa is searching for a Jewish family who used to live in the area. He arrives at the farm of Perrier LaPadite. This scene establishes the villain beautifully. It shows that no matter where he goes he will be the smartest person in the room. He completely breaks LaPadite. He does it slowly and it becomes a scene where you feel uncomfortable, but Waltz’s performance is so captivating that he draws you in. I believe that Col. Hans Landa is one of the best movie villains of all time easily standing up to the likes of Hannibal Lector, Norman Bates, and Hal-9000. He is a complete sociopath and a narcissist. I don’t believe he’s a Nazi; he’s simply saving himself, allying himself with the side he believes will win. There are not enough words in the dictionary I can use to praise Waltz’s performance in this. Hence the man winning ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at The Oscars.

That’s not to say there is only one great performance. Everyone seems to be really pushing it as far as acting ability goes. I even enjoyed Eli Roth as Sgt. Donny Donowitz. I’m not usually a fan of Roth’s acting, but he was rather enjoyable here. The one other thing that stood out was the score. This score as absolutely beautiful. It captures the film’s tone perfectly almost feeling like France was The Wild West. This is of course down to Ennio Morricone, who did the score for “Inglorious Basterds.” Morricone has been responsible for some iconic movie scores, most notably the theme of “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”

Everything about this film is just brilliant. I know I sound like I’m sucking up to it – and yes at times it can get over the top and it may sometimes glorify war – but I say to that, so what? This film is not an average war film; don’t take it so seriously. Rather than say, “that was stupid, it never happened like that.” Just bask in the sheer insanity of it. At least take into account that a film as popular as this did so well in the domestic box office, and only about 30% of it was in English. Is there anymore I can say to convince to watch this?

– by Paul O’Connor