Enjoyable Tarantino Production

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2011)

B-
A lot of reviews have stated to hate this movie, a lot calling it Tarantino's worst film ever made. However, there are still more than enough positive reviews coming in to put this film surprisingly high on the top 250 list of ALL TIME LIST. Does it deserve such recognition? No, not really. This doesn't even come close to the greatness of some of his classic movies; I personally found "Jackie Brown", often considered the weakest installment in Tarantino's line of films, to be much better handled. Why so? Let me say that for starters this story had no real point. I thought it started off okay, I myself particularity enjoying the Bastards and their Nazi-killing sessions. However, it delved into the dream like fantasy of a ten year old boy who'd fantasized far too much about WWII films by the climax. Hitler, all the top Nazi brass, in one room? It just seemed too over-the-top, to the point of ridiculousness. The story has its saving graces though, such as the exhilarating opening scene. It is here we meet Christopher Waltz's character, who is one of Tarantino's most sadistic yet cunning antagonists yet. I enjoyed him throughout the movie. And Dennis Menochet as the farmer was one of the best, if not short-lived, performances in the whole film. Brad Pitt was pretty damn enjoyable as Lt. Aldo Raine. Who didn't enjoy watching him carve swastikas into Nazis' foreheads? Also pretty enjoyable was Melanie Laurnet as Shosanna, and I loved Michael Fassbender in the film.
Two characters I was disappointed with were Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger) and Sgt. Donny Donowitz, a.k.a. the "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth). They were the most underdeveloped characters in the movie, the only real notion you get from their on-screen presence being that they apparently hate Nazis. AS for the treatment of the Nazis in the film, people have been particular about the assumption that the Jews in the film appear without any humanity while the Nazis appear as honorable men. I wouldn't call the Jewish characters inhuman, just horrendously bland, and as for the Nazis I rather like that scene with the bat. It's rather obvious that'd you'd almost feel pity for the Nazi officer as he's honorably clubbed to death, and simply typecasting them as mindless maniacs would be, how to say, cliché?
One other thing that irked me was the climax of the relationship between Shosanna and Fredrick Zoller. After all her hatred of the Nazis which was perfectly justified, it seems highly unlikely that'd she suddenly feel pity for one of them.
However, Tarnantino still manages to deliver some very thrilling and tension filled scenes that will have you on the edge of your seat. So over all I enjoyed this film, but this is definitely not the best story he's written and therefore not his best film yet as many have called it.