QT's salute to cinema and WWII "men-on-a-mission" flix is top notch; one of the year's best!

Rating: 10/10 (24 August 2009)

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) **** Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl, Til Schweiger, Gedeon Burkhard, Jacky Ido, BJ Novak, Omar doom, August Diehl, Denis Menochet, Sylvester Groth, Martin Wuttke, Mike Myers, Julie Dreyfus, Richard Sammel, Alexander Fehling, Rod Taylor, Soenke Mohring, Samm Levine, Paul Rust, Michael Bacall. (Narration: Samuel L. Jackson; unbilled voice over : Harvey Keitel) Quentin Tarantino's epic homage to WWII 'men on a mission' films like "THE DIRTY DOZEN" gets his ya-yas out big time in the Herculean task of a revenge fantasy involving the titular band of brothers, a platoon of 8 Jewish American soldiers led by the no- guts, no-glory Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt, chewing every morsel of cinematic sinew from the bone, in QT's nod to film god Aldo Ray), a Hillbilly from hell, who are out to scalp & kill Nazis while a feverish plan to off the German's military elite - including Hitler – in a world premiere event at a French occupied cinema run by survivor Shosanna Dreyfus (the beguilingly stoic Laurent), who also wants blood-soaked revenge for the murders of her family by Nazi detective Col. Hans Landa (Waltz, a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actor, as the evil hubris loving baddie here) whose uncanny knack for finding the truth may be his Achilles' heel. Blood-drenched with enough gallows' humor & QT's signature dialogue spewing get the best of the film's intentions in the long run but how can you fault him when this is clearly a valentine to cinema overall. One of the year's best.