Tarantino succeeds

Rating: 2/10 (3 January 2018)

What this film succeeds in doing, in my opinion, is to accurately show what thirst for revenge does to the human psyche. Where other films might show the Germans as the "baddies", this film manages to make the viewer look at the German military as more restrained, cultured, dignified and human. They are with the arts, cinema/music, languages, are polite and courteous. Conversely, the Americans and Allies are painted as uneducated, uncultured, sub-human animalistic savages. While neither of these extremes, of course, represent the whole truth, Tarantino seems to intentionally role-reverse the good guy/bad guy concept in this film, particularly. Whether he is doing it to make a statement about the evils of war is dubious. What's clear is that the audience is not cheering on the Jewish cinema owner, whose terrorism / suicide plot is almost Satanic in its portrayal, nor are they cheering on the "basterds".
This film is not meant to be a parody or commentary on history, but simply a spectacle of unimaginably immoral conduct; where many reviewers might see it a justification of violence, it is plain to see that each member of the "Inglorious Basterds", as well as the cinema owner and her accomplice, is in fact motivated by the age-old fallacy of redemption through revenge, which never ends in redemption or satisfaction, but only in tragedy, loss and suffering.