Inglourious Basterds Review

Inglourious Basterds: Quentin Tarantino, WWII, Brad Pitt, Jewish-American soldiers out for revenge against the Nazis = Where do I get in line? The premise of the film is straight forward, a group of Jewish-American soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt) are dropped into Nazi-occupied France. Their object is to kill as many Nazi soldiers as possible, spreading fear among the Third Reich. This would make you believe that the film is going to be filled with a lot of gory action scenes, but that is actually not the case. Instead, the highlights of the movie are the well written Tarantino characters and the well written Tarantino dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, the story is told in a variety of languages including German, French, English and even a little Italian. As for the Tarantino characters I speak of, the show stealer is the German Colonel, Hans Landa played masterfully by Christoph Waltz (Oscar nom for sure). Hans is a detective with the Third Reich that has a specialty for finding Jews in hiding. He is evil, but comical at the same time. Another storyline that eventually crosses that of The Basterds is of a young Jewish girl who owns a cinema in Paris. While concealing her Jewish identity, she begins a relationship with a famous German actor and soldier which leads to a German film premier being held at her cinema. Eventually all of the characters and all of the storylines converge for a memorable night at the movies (yeah, that's a pun). As good as some of the characters were in the movie, I was hoping for a little more out of the group of Basterds. I was expecting them to have that Reservoir Dogs kind of chemistry and that was not the case. They are also not as prevalent in the movie as you would think. This is not all that bad, however, since the other characters are just as, if not more interesting. The film also takes some time to get going, but once it does hit full steam it never slows down. Ultimately, the main star here is Tarantino who has such a unique way of telling stories - and that it is a beautiful thing to behold.

Ry's Rating: B-

If this movie had parents they would be: The Dirty Dozen & Kill Bill

With a runtime of 152 minutes

This film is rated R