Movie Review - 'Basterds'

From the second Col. Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz) steps onto screen, the audience cant help but to cheer for the bad guy. In Quentin Tarantino’s twisted world, it is possible for an audience to both love and hate this charming Nazi solider. That’s right, charming Nazi – which is something that is not too often depicted in cinema. In the movie “Inglorious Basterds” (and yes, it basterds is supposed to be spelt with an ‘e’), Tarantino once again reintroduces his audience to showboating performances, plays on classical film and of course gory scenes that will make you cringe.

But, what is a Tarantino movie without the blood and action that makes his nod to classic film so utterly compelling? In the movie Brad Pitt plays the all-American Aldo Raine who without hesitation slaps on an accent reminiscent of a good ol’ everyman from the south. In the movie, Raine leads a mis-matched pack of Jewish avengers to Nazi occupied Europe where they work towards only one goal: destroy the entire Nazi regime. Seems easy enough, right? In the midst of all this he orders his men to “collect 100 Nazi scalps or die trying” and with that, they do.

In the movie, Raine is not the only one on a quest to bring down the German dictatorship. Shosanna who, while being wooed by a German solider who is unaware of her true identity as well as her true intentions. That is only the beginning of the two stories that will later find common ground towards the end of the movie. However, peppered throughout the movie we find a German movie star turned spy (played by the beautiful Diane Kruger), a British film critic turned spy and many rouge soldiers in between that join the ever-determined Basterds. However, most notable is the performance of Col. Landa who brings an interesting and ridiculous performance by this crazed solider.

As most of Tarantino’s films, the conjoining stories all converge at the end but do so in rather long and disconnected sequences towards the beginning (the movie is, after all 2 and a half hours long). Not to be outdone, later sequences offer up images of Winston Churchill and a crazed Hitler as an ultimate plot to kill Hitler is revealed by most of the parties involved. As with any Tarantino film, there is a lot to digest and a great deal depends on whether you not you like Tarantino’s fast-paced style and interesting film techniques.

Overall, in this epic and wonderfully unrealistic fantasy this film takes a look at WW2 as none of us have ever seen. Overall, not only does the film feature a stellar cast it features a story line, which piggybacks off of personal stories, current events and history alike. However, the history is definitely alternative. While there are many parts that are assured to make any audience collectively cringe, it is a worthwhile movie as well as in interesting take of ‘what could have been’.