Got Your Scalps? Inglourious Basterds Reviewed!

Whew! Finally that embargo is lifted – it was starting to get heavy! All joking aside, it’s been the toughest two weeks just trying to keep myself from telling the world what I though of Inglourious Basterds – fanboy Quentin Tarantino’s latest cinematic offering. But now, on Friday 14th August 2009 I can finally speak, so read on to find out more!

Inglourious Basterds begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as “The Basterds,” Raine’s squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich.

Inglourious Basterds took me by surprise the minute they rolled the opening credits. The open French countryside and the sound of The Alamo’s own “The Green Leaves of Summer” were absolutely superb and a very wise choice on Tarantino’s part – the mix of countryside and Western music set the tone for the first act of the film making it seem far more spaghetti western than Nazi-occupied France. While this took me by surprise initially, it was a pleasant surprise to say the least and demonstrated quite clearly that this was not your average war movie.

Before I go any further in telling you what I thought of this movie let me just say one thing – you’re either going to love it or you’ll hate it. The film is littered with seemingly random and inconsequential references (milk and strudel anybody?) which, while they serve to add a comedic edge to the proceedings, do very little to help progress the story and serve more as a distraction from the peril of the character’s predicament. I found some of these moments slightly uncomfortable, and most of them came from the direction of the brilliant Christoph Waltz as “Jew Hunter” Hans Landa. Landa is a character who is both cruel and yet amusing, which given the film’s serious subject matter can make for some very uncomfortable and involuntary laughter – all part of the genius of the character!

Another character to illicit the same response is as you’ve probably already guessed, iron jawed Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) as he gleefully troupes through the countryside hunting scalps (and yes I mean literally hunting scalps) with his band of not so merry men. When Tarantino described Raine’s character as a hillbilly he hit the nail on the head. In any other situation you couldn’t imagine Raine ever making it off of the farm, and yet when the Americans opt to hit the kill-switch on the ruthless Nazi regime he suddenly becomes the ideal candidate. I couldn’t help wondering if the character was promoted to Lieutenant just five minutes before being sent on his mission. One obvious, yet hilarious moment that Raine presents the audience involves his attempt at an Italian accent, I’ll say no more on that except that it’s certainly worth a chuckle!

Mélanie Laurent is pure class as the vengeful Shosanna Dreyfus, owner of the local cinema who finds herself playing hostess to the ruling Nazi elite during the premiere of “Nation’s Pride” – Goebble’s latest propaganda piece. As character’s go, she is arguably the one with the most depth throughout proceedings. The film her cinema is playing host to features a Nazi war hero by the name of Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). The young private courageously fought off (and killed) 300 Allied troops single handed and as a result has become the star of his own movie. The thing is that the young, patriotic German has also developed strong feelings for Shosanna – something which proves fatal!

The violence in the film, while thinly spread in an episodic fashion, is graphic to say the least. I’ve never actually seen a person’s head smashed into a bloody pulp with a baseball bat, but given the graphic realism of the Eli Roth’s onslaught in this film I feel like I’d physically witnessed an assault on a Friday night in London’s East End. Being a Tarantino movie I actually expected more gratuitous violence than I found on display here, but when it does arrive it doesn’t rain – it pours! The film itself, rather than being a violent, bloody free-for-all is in fact a rather “wordy” picture, it’s almost as if the legend of Tarantino outdoes the reality, but if you cast your mind back to his first picture (Reservoir Dogs) the violence was once again just a small part of the story however memorable.

Overall this film is a unique offering given some of this year’s big budget, commercialised offerings. It gives it’s audience it’s fair share of comedy and uncomfortable moments in almost equal balance and the cast are all definitely on true form here. Quentin Tarantino took ten years writing the script, and I’d say he hasn’t wasted a single day of it as this film is a superb addition to his list of genre conquests. Inglourious Basterds is a film of two stories, which as fate would have it find themselves inextricably woven in an explosive finale. The trouble is that with each side doing it’s fair share of merciless killing, it’s sometimes difficult to keep track with who are the heroes and who are the villains. In the end good and evil do not come into this film, in which survival becomes each characters primary goal – whatever the cost.

Inglourious Basterds is scheduled for UK release on 19th August 2009.

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Tags: brad pitt, eli roth, inglourious basterds, melanie laurent, quentin tarantino, review