A bit self indulgent, violent but very funny

Rating: 8/10 (6 October 2009)

I thoroughly enjoyed this film but I don't think it ranks with Tarantino's classics like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. The film is based around three long scenes and you could say the rest of the plot is only there to facilitate Tarantino to get to those scenes that he has obviously spent a long time in writing.
The cast is very good. Chrisoph Waltz is brilliant as the SS officer without any scruples. Expect him to get an Oscar nomination. However I found Brad Pitt a bit annoying with his Southern accent and Popeye chin.
The film is two and three quarter hours long but thankfully doesn't drag too much. The plot is mainly about two separate plans to kill many of the Nazi leadership in a Paris cinema. One is to be carried out by the "Inglourious Basterds" of the title – a group of American Jewish soldiers sent behind enemy lines in France "to kill Nazis". The second is organised by the cinema owner, who has very personal reasons to hate the Germans. We are introduced to her in the first of the long scenes that Tarantino directs and writes brilliantly. He ratchets up the tension minute by minute as Colonel Landa interrogates the French farmer hiding the Jewish family.
The second of the long scenes sees some of the "Basterds" meet their German contact in a cellar bar, surrounded by German soldiers celebrating the birth of a baby. Again the tension rises slowly as the scene heads to an inevitable bloody conclusion.
The final main scene in the Paris cinema as the German leadership and all the surviving characters gather is also excellent, though it veers towards high farce at the end.
If you like Tarantino films you will like "Inglourious Basterds" also. As with his other films it is very violent. There is also a lot of laugh out loud humour, often in the most violent scenes. You will have to go with the flow as Tarantino the director indulges Tarantino the writer but you will almost definitely leave the cinema smiling.