Tarantissimo !

Rating: 9/10 (23 November 2009)

There are a lot of bad comments about this movie, there are as much bad comments in fact as there are good or even excellent comments about it.
First of all, this movie is typically made for the Tarantino-style fans. It's not a war movie, it's not a simple drama, it's not a history movie either, it's a Tarantino movie. And as a Tarantino movie, this clearly deserves a 10. Now I gave 9, because as a Tarantino fan myself, I just hope (and I know) that there's even more and better that could come from this special, yet excellent, director.
Why does everybody compare Tarantino movies to Pulp Fiction ? Pulp Fiction was a damn good movie, but you can't say it's his best. It's just... when I watch a Tarantino movie, whether it's Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof or now Inglorious Basterds; not only am I not thinking about or comparing it to any other Tarantino or non-Tarantino movie, but also I am actually not even evaluating the movie itself. He just makes scene-by-scene kind of movies I think. You have to listen to the dialog, admire its simplicity and complexity at the same time. You have to remember it's fiction and that his characters are not based on true stories in their attitudes, but that they are mostly the archetypes of their types. You're following a story, like you would with any other movie, but with Tarantino you're interested in the different characters and how they interact with each other.
Inglorious Basterds is, I think, just another little story that could have happened during World War 2. The interesting parts are the confrontations between different parties, like the German officer and a French farmer hiding Jews, the secretly disgusted and disguised Jew girl and a German hero or the British secret agent and the Gestapo officer. This movie shows for example how clever the Germans were, how bold the Americans were and even what cowards the French were. It's about an uneven battle and how things could have come down to particular situations.
Now, did I want to see more cruelty towards Nazi's ? Yes. Did I want to see more of Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz ? Yes. French being my mother tongue, did I feel like the French parts could have been better regarding the vocabulary and grammar used ? Yes. (because I have to admit, in Tarantino movies, characters always use typical accents, vocabulary and grammar... and the French scenes sounded a bit like the actors were reading their lines instead of speaking naturally, can't say anything about the German parts as I don't speak it very well) Would I rather have had Marion Cotillard in Shosonna's role than ex-porn-director-now-awful-actress Mélanie Laurent ? Definitely ! But I'm not going to disregard all that's good about the movie, I am definitely going to see this movie again, and more than once.