A WWII masterpiece from Tarantino that shoves a lot in our face, but luckily knows what to do with it.

Rating: 9/10 (21 August 2009)

Quentin Tarantino has a way with dialogue, and a way with plot. Along with that, he has a way with throwing too much plot into a movie, or too much dialogue into a film with not enough plot (like Death Proof). This film has quite a large amount of dialogue, and it also has many different story lines and characters, none of which are elaborated on until near the end, so it almost seems as though they've been abandoned. By the end of the movie, it's quite apparent that nothing has been abandoned and all these story lines have been calculated as to how to end them perfectly and how to connect everything. Tarantino knew what he was doing.
Like all of Tarantino's films, this one is split up into chapters. Unlike any of his other's, this one is almost completely chronological, aside from the infrequent flashbacks. One story revolves around the Inglorious Basterds, a group of Jewish-American soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Rein (Brad Pitt), and their Nazi scalping. Another story involves Shoshana (Melani Laurent), an escaped Jew who ran away from the evil "Jew Killer", Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), who is out for revenge. Perhaps she will get the revenge she wants when Landa is security at a movie premier at the theater she owns. And there's dozens of fairly main characters and actors along the way to go along with the main plots.
If this film could be compared to any other Tarantino film, it would have to be Reservoir Dogs. Not because of any plot similarities, or similar scenes, but this film is devoid of emotion. Tarantino has his more emotional films, like the second Kill Bill, or Jackie Brown, or even Pulp Fiction, but this isn't really one of them. With that said, this still has characters that are likable and that the audience cares about, this movie just overall isn't an overly emotional film. But that's not what it's about anyways, it's a war film.
The movie is rich in characters, and boy are there a lot of them with quite a bit of screen time. Brad Pitt is definitely the main character of the Americans, and he gives an over the top, often times comedic performance, but he plays a great contrast to the German's lead actor Christoph Waltz, who plays the sinister and evil Col. Hans Landa. Melanie Laurent plays a reserved (for the most part), but interesting role as the woman hell bent on revenge. Diane Kruger plays a rather minor, but interesting role as a German movie star who is actually a spy for the Americans. Every role played is played well, but unlike as it would seem by the trailers, all these actors aren't wrapped around Brad Pitt's finger, but instead Christoph Waltz's. He's the bad guy, and not just that, but he's also the smartest and most cunning of the characters. Really, this film revolves around him, and it works well that way, he's a great character.
My only major quibble with the film is it's set-up. The way the movie is set up, it's only loosely thrown together until everything at the end brings the stories together. So for the first hour and a half (or around there), this movie felt like a constantly changing anthology. Once chapter five binds it together and gives us a typical great Tarantino ending, it makes the movie whole. But the looseness of the film towards the middle brought up questions as to what the purpose of different characters were. Luckily, the answers are all in the last chapter.
Quentin Tarantino has yet again made another movie masterpiece. This one is one of leisure, but at the same time a constantly changing story. By the end, this film has delivered the goods. The rest of the film sets up what will happen with typical rich Tarantino dialogue, and some bloody violence. Definitely it's a unique take on World War II.
My rating: *** 1/2 out of ****. 154 mins. R for strong violence, language and brief sexuality.