Definitely a Quentin Tarantino film, brilliant writing, but you gotta have a high tolerance for blood and gore.

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2010)

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Quentin Tarantino's films. I've seen the highly-regarded Pulp Fiction twice, but it does nothing for me. I don't consider it a good movie at all. But I always am amazed by Tarantino's writing, his characters always have the most interesting dialog.
The premise here is WW2, and a small band of Nazi hunters are called "Inglourous Basterds" by the Nazis. This small band are lead by Brad Pitt as LT. Aldo Raine, from the south, and he inspires his men to not only kill as many Nazis as they can, but also "bring me their scalps." (The scalping scenes are very realistic.)
What I enjoyed most about this movie are the scenes. Unlike many modern movies where the editing switches away to something else frequently, here Tarantino spends ample time developing each extended scene. As the movie begins each one in sequence takes up about 20 minutes running time. First we see the Nazi character nicknamed "the Jew Hunter", visiting a farmer suspected of hiding a Jewish family. Some directors might have filmed this in 5 or 6 minutes through its conclusion, but here we get 20 minutes, and every second of it is tense and interesting. Master film-making. And the rest of the movie uses a similar technique.
Mélanie Laurent is Shosanna, a Jew, who escapes to Paris and now runs a small movie house. She has taken a different, non-Jewish name, but eventually the Jew Hunter, superbly played by Christoph Waltz as COL. Hans Landa, gets on her trail.
The other key character is Diane Kruger as German actress Bridget von Hammersmark. A meeting is set up where she will help the Nazi hunters, but we are never sure which side she is on.
This movie is not for everyone, but for those who enjoy good film-making and superb dialog, this one is a real treat.
SPOILERS: The conclusion comes at the small Paris movie theater, as all the Nazi brass, including Hitler, attend the premier showing of a film which glorifies a young sniper who killed about 300 Allies over three days in a village. Unknown to each other, 3 different groups independently plan to exterminate all the theatergoers. With guns, or explosives, or by burning down the theater. In this fictional story Hitler dies and the war ends early.
Feb 2012 edit: I watched it again after two years, still a very absorbing film.
May 2015 edit: Watched it again, every time I come away with an even better appreciation.