Tarantino is back with a bang!

Rating: 9/10 (2 September 2009)

I just left the theater so I'm still walking on air and will try to tone down the praise words in this '"high" state of writing. "Inglourious Basterds" - no that aren't spelling errors - is already declared film of the year by many critics, though I must add predominantly by the ones that have a sense of humor. In Tarantino's latest revenge parable, fire is fought with fire: Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads a group of scalping, brain bashing, trigger happy Jewish-American soldiers through occupied France. But, surprisingly, that's not the whole plot-outline. For the first time since his Elmore Leonard adaptation (Jackie Brown), The Big T. hangs on to correct chronology, and one can hardly call Inglourious Basterds a plot-driven thriller pur-sang but it's got some thriller-elements. Tarantino is restrained and he creates tension in his plot, and builds up to a climax beautifully.
Mélanie Laurent (playing Soshanna) is a slightly fantastic revelation and nice name to add to the list of "Tarantino girls", which has become an understanding much like - no disrespect - a "Hitchcock blonde". Her role requires her to play an understated kind of fear - the German soldiers musn't suspect her Jewish ethnicity nor her plan to blow up the cinema. After his brilliant moron in "Burn After Reading", Brad Pitt once again gets to fit the shoe of comic, and he wears it brilliantly. The part where he introduces himself in Italian to the German officer in quite possibly the thickest accent in cinema history floored me, and he steals about a dozen more scenes with his deadpan delivery of dialog that can only flow from Quentin's pen ("You know, fightin' in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're fightin' in a basement!").
I thought the scene in the bar (with the three-finger order of whiskey) easily stood as brilliant among some good and excellent sequences (I'm not the story of the Negro coming to America? Then I must be King Kong then!) The opening scene was also jawdropping, the close-up of the hiding Jew's eye through the floorboards, amazing.
These are two twenty+ minute scenes, very talkative and large parts in German or French. Quentin doesn't need the dialog to be in English to create almost unbearable tension! That's one of the things I admired most about the film. Did the subtitles bother anybody? I hate how Tarantino casted his director-friend (not actor-friend) Eli Roth (of the horrid "Hostel" movies) as the Jew Bear. He barely manages not to ruin his scenes. Barely. Diane Kruger's capable of better acting, she's another weak link, especially since that other blonde (Mélanie Laurent) is SO good, it's not a thankful role for an actress/actor with not a great deal of experience in high-profile movies, your co-stars will overshadow you if you don't watch out.
I'll be surprised if Christoph Waltz (Colonel Landa), come Februari, doesn't get an Oscar nomination. We already know the Academy's much less conservative these last few years. The dark "The Departed" won best picture and Javier Bardem also took home the gold for his portrayal of a sadistic "basterd" Wink.
At the time of writing, IB holds the number 35 spot (IMDb top 250). Pulp Fiction still stands strong on 5 and Reservoir Dogs claims number 71. Mathematical conclusion: IB is Quentin's greatest movie since Pulp Fiction. Reviewer's conclusion: damn straight! The Verdict: 8.5/10