Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and released by The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures. It was filmed in several locations, among them Germany and France. The title of the film was inspired by Italian director Enzo Castellari's 1978 movie The Inglorious Bastards, but it is not a remake of that film, being set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, and depicting a plan to assassinate the Nazi leadership.
Starring Brad Pitt, Chrstoph Waltz, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, with special guest appearances by Mike Myers and Rod Taylor (in the same scene).
This is Pitt’s acting coming out party, critics have written of him as just a pretty face without much substance to any of his performances; he takes to this character, like a cat to milk. His portrayal of Aldo Raine, the company leader, is played out to precision. His scene equal and nemesis is Chrstoph Waltz, a virtual unknown Austrian actor, who according to Tarantino “Gave me my movie back” when Leonardo DiCaprio declined Quentin’s invite to play Colonel Hans Landa, a romantic, yet utterly sinister pipe-smoking Nazi. To counter balance these well-placed actors, are two unfamiliar actresses with Me’lanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, the French girl on the run, who becomes a central character as the theater owner. She owns the screen when she is on the celluloid. Diane Kruger, as Bridget Von Hammersmark, turns in the other superb, but limited time performance. The casting is skillful in all the required spaces. Samuel L. Jackson lends his pipes, as the narrator.
Robert Richardson is behind the adroit and proficient lens work. He earned the Academy Award for Best Cinematography twice, for his efforts on JFK and The Aviator. His past work in the film “Platoon” may have aided him with some of his graphic scene set-ups. I treasured the continuing challenge of titter tottering between the “blood and guts” and dramatic thespian conversations. The skilled slowing down of the big screen was artful. It was those theatrical conversational scenes that ostensibly creep that I admired the most in this motion picture.
Much of the production was shot and edited in the famous Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany, the oldest large-scale film studio in the world.
The music is unmistakably Quentin, as he borrows 22 songs from other films, such as ‘The Alamo”, “The Return of Ringo”, “Zulu Dawn”, and “Kelly’s Heroes”. My favorite of them all is “Putting out the Fire” which was sung with booming vocals, by David Bowie.
I found this movie to be expertly done in all areas of need to call any film grand. The use of scene humor is engaging; that humor is sometimes veiled. The music bed is expertly placed in every frame. The glorified violence is not overdone, as the film doesn’t follow these soldiers like in “Saving Private Ryan”. I found the first fifteen minutes of Ryan, some of the most uncomfortable to ever sit through. Quentin takes a comedic twist to his use of gratuitous violence. The acting, and Cinematography is both top notch. Tarantino delivers to us a Chapter-by-Chapter Spaghetti Western but with World War II iconography.
Of the finished film, Tarantino said he thinks that it is the closest thing to Pulp Fiction he's ever done. I so not share that accolade, however I did not like Pulp Fiction after my first viewing. My opinion has changed on Pulp Fiction after seeing that title multiple times. I plan to examine “Inglourious Basterds” all over again, before it leaves the big screen.
If you enjoyed Pulp, Kill Bill, and Jackie Brown, run do not walk to this movie.
