The Glorious Resistance ~ A Movie Review of ‘Inglorious Basterds’

‘Inglorious Basterds’ is the story that never happened.  It is revisionist history as fantasized by every person who suffered death and destruction by the hands of the Nazis.  It is as if Eric Cartman and Kyle Broflovski had separate dreams that somehow merged with each other ('South Park' reference). 

 

Quentin Tarantino has bitten a lot off in making this film (don’t worry he doesn’t act in it, I even checked the IMDB acting listing to make sure he wasn’t in some bit part that I overlooked) not only did he direct but he also wrote the script plus ‘Inglorious Basterds’ marks his debut effort into the historical territory of World War II.  Granted, appearing realistic isn’t high on the list for this movie and there were enough holes in the storyline to drive a fuel efficient car through, but on the whole it succeeded.  Tarantino has to be in the top ten of innovative directors of the last twenty years for any movie fan.   His impact on films can be seen from the time after the release of his most well regarded and profitable film, ‘Pulp Fiction’ in 1994.  He is a director who loves the art of filmmaking and it shows in that this is one of the few films without over the top special effects that I would say definitely needs to be seen in a theater in order to get the full effect of it.  His scenes linger (I am not kidding about this) while the actors slowly unfold the narrative.  If you have ADHD of any form, this isn’t the film for you.  Further, if you are not a fan of subtitles you might as well skip ‘Inglorious’ as well because the dialogue goes from English, to French, to German to Italian to Italian as spoken by an Appalachian native. 

 

The movie stars Brad Pitt and although he does a commendable job as Lt. Aldo Raine; Christoph Waltz is the true star of the show.  He is a German actor who has a few English speaking roles to his credit, but I’d bet one of my kidneys that movie fans will be seeing a lot more of him.  I haven’t seen a film villain as intriguing since Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber in the original ‘Die Hard’ (BTW, can you believe that film is 21 years old?).  As Col. Hans Landa he speaks English, German, French and Italian while doing most of his acting with her easy charm and a deadly stare.  Even if you have issues with the scenes running long, Waltz has you on edge every second he is on the screen.  Also earning some acting props are Diane Kruger as German actress Bridget von Hammersmark and  Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus a Jewish girl whose hiding her identity and becomes the one sided love interest for a German war hero.  Oh, and while I’m doling out praise, Denis Menochet is not only moving in the one scene he is in; he is also my new actor crush.    

 

As for the bastards in ‘Inglorious Basterds’ they are sh*t kicking Nazi hunters who have been killing Nazis since 1941 behind enemy lines in German occupied France.  I imagine some of the stories of the characters were left on the cutting room floor because there just wasn’t room to tell in the nearly two hour film; the result is that some characters weren’t well drawn out and at times confusing – such as how did that other guy with the hood over his head in up in the truck with Brad Pitt?  Did I miss something?  And although it isn’t necessary to spell out the motivations for all of the characters what would lead one character, or even two characters for that matter, to spy/betray their country of origin some clues would have been appreciated. 

 

Like many, if not most of Tarantino directed projects, ‘Inglorious’ is violent and at times it seems to slip genres.  For instance in one scene I thought for sure one of the guys was going to say something about introducing Hitler to “Say hello to my litl’ friend.”  Since Tarantino has no compunction about using music from different decades to emphasize character emotion, he could have easily slipped in the theme to the ‘Godfather’ without much protest from the audience. 

 

Speaking of audience, I have to admit that I was delighted to see so many older types standing in line for this film even if they shouted that “ONE SENIOR TICKET!” to the befuddled girl in the glass booth.  What was also great was that several members of the audience actually clapped in the end, they also clapped when one of the secondary characters was shot which I thought was interesting for a weekday audience to do.

 

Overall, I would recommend seeing ‘Inglorious Basterds’ in the theater.  It embraces all things that true film lovers adore: outstanding cinematography, a commendable story where viewers don’t know what will happen next, and some Oscar worthy performances.  I’m sure the DVD will be entertaining since I am assuming that there were many scenes cut from the film because of the before mentioned time element, but I think a lot of the impact of the movie will be lost on a smaller screen.

 

 

Westerfield © 2009