One of the Best of the Year

Rating: 10/10 (27 June 2011)

Inglourious Basterds Rating: B
WARNING: Review may contain minor spoilers but I promise not to include anything you can't already see in the trailers.
Inglourious Basterds is a story set in a fictionalized version of World War II involving an attempt by two different parties to kill members of the German command including Adolf Hitler himself. One of the parties is the Basterds, a group of Jewish American soldiers who pride themselves in "killin' Nazis."
From the trailers I came into Inglourious Basterds expecting an ultra-violent Nazi-killing action movie with a bit of dark humor, but the movie was not what I thought it would be. It was a much more complex story than that broken up into five different chapters (only 3 of which included the Basterds). Part of me is happy that it was more complex than what I was expecting but the parts with the Basterds, especially Brad Pitt's character were so entertaining that another part of me wishes that it was the focus of the whole movie. Regardless, Quentin Tarantino did a great job with the story and when the credits rolled at the end of the movie and I looked at my watch I couldn't believe that 2 and a half hours had gone by, the writing was just so tight that it didn't give you time to focus on the reality of the passing time.
I never used to be a huge fan of Brad Pitt but recently I've started to like him a lot more, and this movie was a brilliant role for him. His character, the Tenessee-born Lt. Aldo Raine, was absolutely the best part of this movie, his performance was constantly hilarious and there were a few scenes where I was in tears I was laughing so hard. It's not something that the Academy will recognize, but from a comedy standpoint it's one of the best performances I've seen in a long time.
As I mentioned before the pacing of this movie was very good. It had your classic Quentin Tarantino goofiness, but it also had great moments of suspense, and great human drama. The way Tarantino handles his films shows a master at work, whether you like his works or not, they just have such tight direction that the audience is completely removed from their own world without realizing it.
This was not Tarantino's best movie but it was very well done, my only complaints are that I wish there was more focus on the Basterds, which I thought were the best part of the movie, and there's a scene at the end that, although satisfying to see, broke the fourth wall because of it's historical inaccuracy. But I would definitely recommend it, even if you don't like Tarantino, Brad Pitt is just too funny to miss.
SECOND TAKE: A
This movie is brilliant, one of the best of the year definitely. The storytelling, the writing, the direction, the performances, EVERYTHING is spot on. I think the reason a rated it lower before was that I was expecting the whole movie to be in the same vein as the second and fourth chapters and I was disappointed that it was not. However, the Basterds are only part of the brilliance of the movie, and the other chapters are just as fantastic as the ones focusing on the Basterds. Chapter One for instance was an absolute Tour de Force tension building and brilliant writing. This movie is not to be missed.