I sure would like to take Tarantino's history class

Rating: 8/10 (28 August 2009)

Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's new motion picture, he's established very much as a great director and writer in Hollywood. He has a ton of fans and everyone here on IMDb that I know of complain constantly how Pulp Fiction was robbed of best picture, still a puzzler to me, but I'd say that I'm a fan too over all. I own most of his work and think that he's a very talented man. He hasn't really come out with anything new for a few years excluding Grindhouse, Kill Bill Vol. 2 was his last film that he directed. I was actually kind of disappointed with that film, now I loved Death Proof, but I know that was not his baby. With Inglourious Basterds I think we were all going through the same thing as that Quentin is back to doing what he does best, writing great material as directing it with a unique style and giving the audience so much entertainment. Does he do that with Inglourious Basterds; yes. The film has it's flaws, it's not his great masterpiece or opus since Kill Bill Vol. 1 or even Pulp Fiction, but this film is hella entertaining and Tarantino picks a terrific cast of actors to bring this crazy "effed" up version of what Quentin thinks should have happened during WWII.
Set in an alternate history of WWII in which the entire top leadership of Nazi Germany, namely Hitler, Göring, Goebbels and Bormann attend a film premiere in Paris celebrating the exploits of a German sniper who had managed to kill 300 American soldiers in Italy over four days and single handedly hold the town he was occupying. Tracking the separate attempts to kill Hitler by two disparate forces, one being the "Basterds", a motley crew of Jewish American soldiers out for revenge against the Nazis. The Basterds have a modus operandi whereby each man must cut off the scalps of dead Nazi soldiers, with orders to get 100 scalps each. The Basterds allow one German soldier to survive each incident so as to spread the news of the terror of their attacks. However, the Basterds carve a swastika into the forehead of that German so that they cannot hide or forget that they were a Nazi. The other force concerns Shosanna, the only survivor of a Jewish family killed by a Nazi colonel nicknamed "The Jew Hunter". Shosanna then plots her own revenge on the Nazis. The Basterds and Shosanna remain unaware of each other thought they both have set their sights on revenging all Jews and destroying the Nazi party.
Inglourious Basterds is one of the better films I've seen in 2009, the writing, direction and acting(in particular a knock out of the ball park performance by Christoph Waltz) made Inglourious Basterds into a very good movie. I only have 2 complaints, pretty minor but I feel like as much as I admire Quentin's style of movie making it seems like he's still trying hard to impress with his Making a Movie 101. He's got great style, he needs to explore a little more and push the edge. Also I love Quentin's dialogue, we know this man can write, he's probably the best writer in Hollywood and the very first scene cements how brilliant his writing is. But the movie is very long, 153 minutes, I just felt like a couple of scenes dragged on a little too much, I know this is his style but for this type of a film I think he could have done different. But he entertains where it counts and this ending was just the most insane ending I've seen in a film for a while. He made an interesting choice in casting Eli Roth, who is the director of Hostel and Cabin Fever, he just looked so hyped to be in this movie, but over all Roth pulls his weight. Pitt who you think would be in 95% of the movie is actually not as big of a role as I expected but he barely holds up a candle to Waltz's performance, but the two played off each other and were great. Diane Krueger also delivers in a great performance with Mélanie Laurent as a strong female who has a very menacing act to follow. I would recommend Inglourious Basterds for a matinée show, like I said, it's not Tarantino's masterpiece, but it's a great way to get back into the big screen with a splash.
8/10