It occurred to me right before I walked into the theater to see Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds" that the reason for his bizarrely misspelled title was to ensure that newspapers could print it without fear of censorship. I don't know if that's true, but the film certainly deserves as much press as it can get. Described by its director as "a spaghetti western but with World War II iconography," it combines the maturity of his "Jackie Brown" with the cartoonish joy of "Kill Bill" and the audacity of "Pulp Fiction." If it is not his greatest film, it is certainly his most daring.
The timeline jumps immediately after the character introductions to a rather camp Hitler panicking over the Basterds' successes, as the insurgents - Tarantino casually drops equations of the soldiers to terrorists a few times - have picked up nicknames that only enhance their mystery: the scalp-loving Raine becomes "Aldo the Apache," the bat-wielding Donny (Eli Roth) "the Bear Jew."
But this, to the undoubted dismay of some, is not simply an exercise in video game Nazi killing. Far more integral to the story is Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a Jew in hiding from the Nazis who runs a cinema. When a young war hero (Daniel Bruehl) falls for her, he arranges for the premiere of Goebbels' propaganda film to be held at her theater, thus allowing her chance for revenge on the entire Nazi high command.
The two stories never fully converge, at least not beyond a final setting, but they each promote a similar, thoroughly Tarantinoesque look at history: the story of Raine's men presents us with a revisionist war movie, one that piles on the director's seemingly limitless depths of film knowledge into a referential melting point that doesn't become the sum of its quotations like some of his past efforts. Shosanna's, on the other hand, concerns film itself. Her plan to use film literally as a weapon reflects the spirit of the nouvelle vague and contrasts brilliantly with the propaganda film to be shown in her cinema; what is propaganda if not psychological warfare?
Though a few characters aren't tied up very well (or at all), I can't find much to fault with "Inglorious Basterds." Its perfect cast knows exactly what Tarantino is shooting for here, and they play up the dark humor brilliantly. Brad Pitt, always at his most interesting in comedic roles, commits so thoroughly to Raine's slack-lipped redneck that you can't help but laugh whenever he's on-screen. But veteran Austrian television actor Christoph Waltz steals the show as the amoral, terrifying SS Colonel Hans Landa, "the Jew Hunter." Waltz captures Landa's polite charm and vicious madness in equal measure. He alone is worth the price of admission, and a second viewing.
While Raine's final line might not reflect the film itself, "Inglorious Basterds" is an audacious movie you can't afford to miss. It proves that the director is at his best when he pays tributes not to genres but cinema as a whole.
-- Review by Jake Cole
Opinions Staff
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
