An alternate take on history, with both earnestness and levity

Rating: 8/10 (27 June 2010)

Oh yes, Inglourious Basterds does contain violence and even gore, too graphic for my liking at times. On the other hand, both the commercial trailer and NPR's Quentin Tarantino interview will have you believe the violent scenes are pervasive or excessively frequent, which they aren't. And that's good! This movie has plenty of intricate storylining and dramatic complexity woven into it. The opening scene shows very effectively how the day-to-day Nazi occupation of France may have operated in its sophistication and ruthlessness, penetrating even the remotest rural areas, and how that may have felt to those subjected to it--namely, to a Jewish girl named Shosanna. This scene alone explains a lot of the extremes to which Shosanna will go at the end of the movie.
While the action scenes are certainly fast-paced, the dialogue scenes are never hurried. They allow for ample character study, with the bizarre finding that some of the Nazi "dignitaries" exude a vibrant humanity (and I don't mean that the featured SS officer speaks four languages fluently), while some of the "good guys" remain flat and bland. Specifically, Brad Pitt's redneck accent (we later learn his character is supposed to be from Tennessee) seems forced and gratuitous. And while we are on the subject of Brad Pitt: Is he being groomed to be another Clark Gable? If so, then it isn't working.
The nature of the story dictates that you would find characters speaking French, German, and English with one another, and Quentin Tarantino does a bold job approaching the challenge of integrating these languages (as opposed to prescribing the generic use of English). Whatever dialogue is not in English gets subtitled in English, so you will be reading a lot of subtitles. When French and German speakers interact, they generally end up speaking French, although sometimes with the aid of an interpreter--which bears a certain irony because that interpreter won't help English-speaking audiences.
Since I happen to speak both German and French, I found those dialogues inspired and conducive to good storytelling, especially with the German and French delivered by actors who are household names in their countries. However, the expectation of many scenes being subtitled wasn't set in the trailer, and some people might find their unexpected and frequent occurrence annoying or exhausting in a two-and-a-half-hour movie. But again, as far as I am concerned, the "naturalism" of multiple languages worked for me and even added to the gravitational pull of a compelling plot.
It's neither good nor bad that the script takes considerable creative license with historical facts. We all know that at least the ending didn't happen that way, although you wish it had, so I admit this may be bad. The soundtrack also reminds us every so often, by going back and forth between historic shellac favorites and today's sonic imagery, that this is a story tailored to engage present-day audiences. The plot has intriguing twists to it, and the overall craftsmanship of the movie is solid, so yes, this movie has managed to engage me for two and a half hours.