Inglourious Basterds

2009 realistic war movie

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: In occupied France, Jewish-American soldiers brutally kill Nazis and collect their scalps. Meanwhile, pretty Shosanna, a young woman who witnessed the murder of her entire family after they were discovered hiding on a dairy farm, meets German war hero Fredrick Zoller. As he becomes more and more interested in her, she finds out that the movie theater she operates will be premiering Goebbels' new film, coincidentally the detailing of Zoller's heroism. She plots her revenge as the Basterds also plan how they can use the premiere to add to their scalp collection.

First off, Christoph Waltz as the "villain" in this movie is terrific. An early favorite for my actor of the year award. On the other hand, I'm not sure what to think about Brad Pitt here. His character and especially his accent don't make sense, and I'm not sure if that's because he's terrible or if I'm missing part of the point. He's a heroic hick, an homage (parody?) to Sergeant York maybe, and so goofy that it almost has to be intentional. This is a complex movie about the making of war movies, about revisionist history, about propaganda, and about the nature of heroism. This sucker's got depth, and more than any other movie I can remember seeing, it's really two films in one. You've got the very entertaining, very violent, and very humorous stuff on the surface, but there's so much subtext that it almost feels like a second movie underneath. This movie is a lot of fun to watch and a lot of fun to think about for a few days after you watch it. Tarantino toys with audience expectations and emotions enough to annoy a lot of people, but it's great seeing a director who is so sure of himself that he knows he can do anything he wants. It's almost to the point where the movie itself seems cocky. Other movies probably hate Inglourious Basterds because it's so stuck on itself and thinks it's all that. The extremely lengthy chunk of dialogue to start the movie, dialogue long enough to turn off anybody coming to the theater to see some war action and Tarantino stylized violence, is exceptionally gripping. Almost all the dialogue is great actually. The stylized violence is there, too, and it's also gripping. As with most of his work, Tarantino's movie wears its influences very well. There are more than a handful of scenes here, too many to mention them specifically, that are so amazingly executed that I had to pick my jaw up off the floor afterwards. An impressive work of art, and a huge comeback following Tarantino's dismally worthless little car movie.