Glorious Basterds

Rating: 9/10 (5 January 2010)

Quentin Tarantino is like no other director, and Inglourious Basterds is like no other Word War II. These two statements surmise the entire two and a half hours of Inglourious Basterds, which is an incredible film. Divided into five chapters (which I'm sure someone smart could parallel to Shakespeare's five acts) the movie tells the stories of a young Jewish woman orphaned by the Nazis, and an American guerrilla unit in Germany known for removing Nazi scalps. Both the young woman (Melanie Laurent) and the military unit (lead by a southern Brad Pitt) hatch separate plans to assassinate Adolph Hitler and chaos ensues. The antagonist to all of this and one of the best parts of the movie is the chillingly uncaring Col. Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz) aka "the Jew Hunter." Inglourious Basterds is not a thriller, action, comedy or drama, though it's not not any of those genre's either; instead it is probably safest to say that it was made by Quentin Tarantino. For people who have not seen anything by Quentin Tarantino the term adult-fairy-tale could be used as well. The characters are larger than life, the sets are over the top, the plot is simple yet huge in scope, and of course it begins with "once upon a time." In addition, the cinematography, the music, the acting and the editing are all excellent and it leaves the movie with the feeling that it is too romanticized to be real life yet somehow more like real life than most other films. All of this comes out from Taratino's distinct style, which is what makes the movie work. The scene in the basement tavern showcases this in particularly, with the suspicious Nazi, the suave British spy and the double-agent socialite battling it out in one long unabridged sequence.
The acting as mentioned is incredibly well done; Brad Pitt becomes the southern US and Christopher Waltz impersonates an evil at par with Heath Ledger's joker. Melanie Laurent is ruthless, beautiful, angry, simple, vengeful etc. all in one complex character. Even Mike Myers and B.J. Novak, known for their comedy, pull off serious roles without problem.
In short Quentin Tarantino is a unique and awe-inspiring film-maker. I mean how many people do you think can pull off an out of the blue narration by Samuel L. Jackson accompanied by sixties font and music in the middle of a WWII movie and make it seem normal. He makes movies with a style so their own that they would be refreshing if the plot revolved around a blind eighty year old dictioneer (dictioneer (n'): one who writes dictionaries). So what if he slightly fudged the facts of WWII, the movie was entertaining and that is kind of the point. Inglourious Basterds deserves full praise as much as Lt. Aldo Raine deserves his one hundred Nazi scalps.
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