Cowboys and Nazis.

Rating: Null/10 (24 August 2009)

Up until this point, it's worth mentioning that in amongst the select few war movies that aren't steeped in sober reflection and grim in their honest portrayals of The Brutality of War, very few are high profile, widely known or least of all critically esteemed. Cue Quentin Tarantino, lover of the Spaghetti Western, A, B, C, D movies infused with absurdity and exploitative traits and even those sombre, epic war movies so adamant in their seriousness. So what then happens then when you combine a love for cinema in its many forms with an even bigger love for tearing it up there on the big screen yourself? Simple; you get a Tarantino film, and this time around it just happens to be Hitler up there on high court in place of The Bride, Vince Vega or Mr. White. It's honest, but plays loose with facts when something more exciting can occur; entertaining and appealing to a wide range of adult audiences, but reverent to cinema as art-form as well as fun entertainment; and perhaps most importantly is that it feels new and cutting edge yet strangely classically informed at the same time—sound familiar? Well like I said; you get a Tarantino film.
Told in traditional Tarantino narrative which unfolds under many roofs simultaneously and eventually colliding in a stream of pathos and catharsis, Inglourious Basterds is certainly a long one but whether it's an epic of sorts remains to be seen. This, however, doesn't seem to be on the mind of the director. You see, here Quentin trades in the grime and horror of war for something a little more casual. As is also commonplace in his movies, the violence is still on full throttle here yet isn't overly stylised as has been the case previously and maintains a firm grasp on realism throughout. Yet such instances do not dominate the focus of Inglourious Basterds; this feature which clocks in at just over two and a half hours showcases perhaps just ten minutes of graphic violence cumulatively over its entire duration. For some bizarre reason, Tarantino has been—perhaps a little unfairly—ostracised in Hollywood because of an exaggerated image of being someone who loves to glorify violence in his features. Yet as is the case in most of his films, it just happens to be that the 5% of his features which do revel in blood, pain and torture often make a large impression because of the contrast they so solemnly make against the other, more visceral points of his work.
These ostensibly calm and slow moments during the film work on a level a lot more subtle and poignant than the larger, more bombastic sequences. And while there are moments here that echo the long, unwinding dialogue scenes present in Death Proof or Pulp Fiction, like those features there are always cogs turning the background—Tarantino loves to explore characters with these scenes which build and build around the conversations and interchanges between his characters, and here with some instances where his script runs pages and pages with little to no plot development at all, here this directorial staple if you will works to a fine point. Contrasting, but not to the point where the viewer becomes weary or agitated, Inglourious Basterds works at building up moments of violence before they occur. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you expect something bloody to happen—sometimes it happens, most of the time it doesn't, but it's this subtle manipulation that keeps the feature from crumbling under the weight of its many characters, timelines, narratives and least of all plot developments.
All across the board, the performers do a stellar job of nailing that Tarantino vibe; the back and forths are spot on, the characters alive and vibrant and thanks to the many arcs that are given to each of them, very few become fodder for the scenery. Instead, Inglourious Basterds utilises its robust runtime efficiently, building characters, their interpersonal quips, what gets them ticking and of course, resolving the conflicts that inevitably arise when a bunch of misfit Yanks in the German-nicknamed Basterds company go head-hunting in France for any Nazi uniforms they can see. Such instances arise in a manner which can be both disturbing and comical at the same time with both Brad Pitt and Christopher Waltz stealing every scene they're in whether Pitt's laughing in the face of danger or Waltz is slithering across the set to poke his nose into someone else's pie.
It's absurd and gauche by all means, but never succumbs to facile factitiousness or asinine kitsch, and such is where the movie becomes something entirely different from what you may expect. The result is a war movie that doesn't feel like one, and for all the right reasons. Make no mistake, this isn't Saving Private Ryan or Shindler's List—instead it plays more like Cowboys and Nazis, with an effervescent French femme-fatal Jew stuck in the middle playing (unbeknownst to anyone else) catalyst harbinger of doom reminiscent of the vengeful Bride of yesteryear. Through this somewhat surreal mix of world history with the history of film, Tarantino crafts a feature which is just as exciting as it is eloquently designed—informed, uniquely artistic and downright entertaining in every regard, you get the sense once more right from the movie's opening credits that Quentin is only here to show us all exactly why he loves and what he loves about cinema. Inglourious Basterds not only serves as another chapter in that ode, but also reaffirms the director as one of the most inventive, exciting, artistic and intelligent film-makers out there today.
"Y'know This might just be my masterpiece" reflects a satisfied Lt. Aldo Raine at the movie's closing point and, well yeah; he might just be right.

Written by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)