Fictional basterds take no prisoners

Rating: 8/10 (29 September 2009)

In our sombre days of politically correct, Nazis are just about the only villains who can still be mistreated and abused on screen - but possibly not for long, considering the controversy around "Der untergang", the movie that should make us feel sorry for Hitler. However and luckily for the public Tarantino does not care about feeling sorry for the Nazis and delivers a great dark comedy.
The setting is in occupied France during WWII, but the events are purely fictional – this is NOT a DOCUMENTARY!!!! The Nazis portrayed in the movie are archetypal bad guys, just about as realistic as Freddy of the "Nightmare" series, or Aladdin and his magic lamp. Unfortunately, part of the public seems unable to understand this and criticises the movie as if it has any pretense of being based on a true story.
The movie follows two main threads: the activities of the "basterds" – a group of American Jews sent to occupied France to kill and scalp Nazis and the revenge of a French Jew girl, who barely escaped from the massacre of her whole family.
I find the movie main fault in this double-thread. Contrary to what one might believe, the "basterds" of the title are only secondary characters. It is a shame because each scene featuring them is pure fun, from the memorable speech which introduces the group to the final, mass-destruction scene in the cinema. The part about Shosanna and her revenge is drawn-out, melodramatic and a bit too close to reality to be just pure fun.
As usual with Tarantino, some of the dialogs are a bit too fancy and tend to dilute the tension of some scenes, but I truly appreciated the use of several languages, rather than a monolithic usage of English, as it happens in most American productions. However, I do understand them all, and I can even state that the Italian spoken by the snotty Colonel Landa is not as good as it might sounds.
Contrary to what I feared, Brad Pitt is actually quite good and the character he plays delivers the funniest speeches. Equally good are Fassbender, as a parody of a stiff-upper lip Brit officer and Schweiger, as the completely crazy and OTT Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz. Much was written about Christoph Waltz performance, and even if just about everybody (even those who hated the movie) seems to have liked it, I personally found it overstated and slightly garish. Even if this is a comedy, at times his character appears to be just plain silly. Nonetheless, he is probably Oscar-bound for what is basically a shrill portrayal. Still, the Oscar are not anymore a landmark of professionalism....... Finally, this is the best Tarantino since "Jackie Brown" – which was a long time ago. Apparently, QT is not quite worn out, but let us hope he will be able to streamline his movies a bit more in the future, especially by cutting down the verbosity of some characters.