Rewriting History

Rating: 8/10 (5 February 2019)

Movies should be fun. They should excite you and usher you away into a new reality. Without hesitation, I believe that Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is the greatest dark comedy and period piece of the late 2000's. Its star studded cast includes Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, and the exceptional Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz. The tale unfolds in Nazi Germany as an underground Jewish-American unit seek to assassinate Hitler. Meanwhile, SS Colonel Hans Landa hunts Jews and runs security at a prestigious film showcasing housed in a small French cinema.
Tarantino continues to push the envelope by opening with an over 15 minute scene. It is not a montage or a backstory, but a powerfully funny, eery, and necessary scene. But enough about Tarantino's thinly veiled genius. Waltz and Pitts performances are perfectly crafted and their characters' idiosyncrasies and lines live on 10 years later. The film delights the audience by taking a sensitive topic and somehow tastefully parodying it. The story is presented using a fractured narrative, cutting between multiple main story lines at once. This recalls Tarantino's style which he best showcased in Pulp Fiction. Again, keeping true to his format, Tarantino brings the separate character groups to singular finale and intertwines their fates.
Inglourious Basterds could survive on its character depth alone, but it is dually strengthened by its sharp color palette ranging from bursting rose reds and forest greens to drab concrete and SS uniform grey. Tarantino's unique humor has once again proven it has not grown old.