Step back! We have a winner!!

Rating: 9/10 (16 February 2010)

Vengeance. Drama. Retribution. Comedy. Fantasy. Tarantino's latest flick effortlessly wraps its arms around all of these themes and what emerges from this rich melange is a movie whose audacity has been surpassed by none in the recent past.
A group of Jewish-American soldiers, referred to as the "basterds" (yes, with an "e", because that's the way you would pronounce it - QT), takes the battle to the Nazis. They live in enemy territory, ambush German patrols, and "take no prisoners". Led by Lt. Aldo "the apache" Raine (Brad Pitt), the team boasts of formidable Nazi-killers such as Sgt. Donny "the bear Jew" Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Sgt. Hugo "killed 13 Gestapo officers" Stiglitz (Til Schweiger). Parallel to this runs the story of Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a Jew girl living under an assumed name in Paris who owns a cinema. Her parents were killed on the orders of SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Driven by a desire to avenge her parents' death, she finds the perfect opportunity when the top brass of the Nazis (Goebbles, Goring, Bormann and Der Fuhrer himself) decides to attend a film premiere at her cinema. The Basterds are also not too eager to let this one go by. And the rest...is NOT history!
The acting is brilliant. QT casts a virtually unknown Christoph Waltz as Col. Landa and what do we get? One of the best portrayals of a Nazi official ever, right up there with Ralph Fiennes' Amon Goeth in "Schindler's List". The often-smiling, mannered, gentle SS Colonel turns menacing in a second, his eyes change colour, his face devoid of expression. "Au revoir, Shosanna" he shouts, as she, soaked in the blood of her own parents, runs frantically away into the fields. Chilling. Melanie Laurent plays Shosanna as she should have been – reserved, often melancholy but exuding an inner determination. Her deliberate underacting in some scenes is beautiful to watch. Brad Pitt with his heavily-accented dialogue and quirky humour provides good support.
And then there is Tarantino himself. It's his film. You can feel his presence in every scene, in every dialogue, in every little thing. From the numerous nods to spaghetti westerns, B-movie stars, pop culture and stylized violence to the use of freeze frames, pointers-on-screen, third-person-narration and startling editing choices – it's Tarantino all the way. Yes, he is self-referential. He is self-indulgent. So what? Hell, he's earned it. The greatest hallmark of this film is that Tarantino maintains the balance between all these aspects perfectly. Nothing here is in excess.
The movie is essentially an account of using violence as a solution to every problem, a fantastical account no doubt. On second thoughts, it's also about venting repressed wishes of giving Nazi leaders what they deserved. It's a bold movie. It will create controversies. But in the process, Tarantino brings out our deepest, darkest wishes, whose existence we have never acknowledged, even to ourselves. As for me, I'll walk a thousand miles to see once again what happened to all those present inside the cinema at the end. Thank you, Quentin.
At the beginning of this review I said that this film evolves out of a melange of cinematic themes. Let me correct myself. It evolves out of Tarantino's heart, out of his vision of cinema and is laced with his love and obsession with the art form.