INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

2009
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Produced by Lawrence Bender
The Weinstein Company

For the record I never really liked Tarantino or the majority of his filmography, mainly because he's more pretentious than me. The one film I do like that he's done in the past is Reservoir Dogs and even that comes with a bit of an acquired taste. His films that are actually decent demonstrate a fair amount of entertainment mixed with stylized ego that seem to have been ejaculated into various segments of the movie. Inglourious Basterds is no different from this characteristic with the exception that it's actually good and good enough where I could stand to watch it and not write a longwinded, raging... ignore the second half of that last sentence.

There are a few reasons that Inglourious Basterds fairs better than not and two of those reasons are Brad Pitt and Christophe Waltz. I'm serious; I've so rarely seen such a spectacular dynamic and contrast between two characters, especially when the first time they meet is the climax. For those of you who believe that Tyler Durden is still Pitt's best role: please go teabag a blender. Aldo Raine is the one of the most badass characters to be seen in a movie ever since Bruce Campbell's chin... Sorry got lost there for a moment there but really, Pitt does an utterly fantastic job as Aldo the Apache and if there is one credible trait I give to Mr. Tarantino it is the ability to direct characters... almost as much as how shitty he writes the dialogue.

The first scene is, by and far, the best scene in the entire film. I would say more specifically that it's the best dialogue driven scene but every fucking scene IS dialogue driven save for the BBQ scene at the theater of course. It starts off and Colonel Hans Landa (Christophe Waltz) of the German S.S. pays a visit to Perrier LaPadite for suspicion of harboring people who are better at making money than he is. People (and by people I mean ignorant yuppies) have told me that what makes this scene really great is how you don't expect what's coming or it's unpredictable or it pulls a 180 or whatever. First of all, how could you not expect (to an extent at least) what's coming? If you're watching a movie taking place in Nazi occupied territory and a high ranking officer suspects a civilian of safe-housing Jews, 9 times out of 8 you'll find a couple of families in their attic hoping their not breathing too loudly. That was my first guess even before Landa inquired as to the nature of his visit. What really makes this scene gripping to watch is Christophe Waltz. Colonel Landa is a man who doesn't need to try to intimidate anyone; he just naturally is. So when he explains that trying to conceal any secrets from him are utterly futile and he knows exactly where the poor bastards are hiding it becomes so crushing to see LaPadite breakdown and essentially bend over. This goes without saying that Waltz delivers a brilliant performance as a Nazi SS Colonel and I'm sure that's a phrase that isn't said very often and rarely a compliment. My one gripe about this scene is a petty complaint in the cinematographic department. Mind you it is wonderfully lit with the source of light being an apparent skylight that bounces off the wooden table and key lighting (Face-lighting) the two gentlemen. It it also cuts together very smoothly and subtly, emphasizing the slowly escalating conversation. My one nitpick however is one shot where it begins on LaPadite and trucks down under the floor boards to reveal the anticipated refugees. Personally I think it would have worked better if it never visually revealed their presence at all until Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) escapes through the window duct. I know I said that I anticipated them being there but it builds that much more tension just not seeing them and makes it much more painful to watch when LaPadite gives them up.

Sorry to rant on like that on only the first scene but it's quite well done and it oddly enough gave me a lot to talk about. Very well, on with the show.

You already know I thoroughly enjoyed the roles of Pitt and Waltz and the rest of the acting suits the mood of Inglourious Basterds quite well, save for Eli Roth who has the acting skills of a gerbil and quite frankly makes me ashamed to be a Massachusetts native. Otherwise no real major complaints in that area.

Something else I will credit to Tarantino is the way he uses language in this film. It cycles through English, German and French between the bastards, the Nazis and Shosanna (oh and if you wish to count it, a small amount of Greaseball). At times when their paths cross it becomes necessary to translate for one another. The language barriers between make for an amusing laugh and builds tension as there are times that you know something another character doesn't and whether it's comical or important you may be inclined to let out a chuckle or two. The downside is that with all the subtitles I often find myself with my eyes glued to the bottom of the screen as if I might as well have been watching 1970s porn. The second time I watched it I noticed details I hadn't seen the first time because I was too busy reading the fucking translations and missed something as simple as a facial expression. Granted something like this comes expected with any foreign film but this isn't a foreign film this is Tarantino. I didn't expect half the movie to be like reading cue cards. Yes I know this sounds petty and culturally ignorant, I mean it's only fucking subtitles but because this movie is so dialogue and character heavy it relies on you to keep up without missing a beat. I keep trying to read what's being said and then look back up and see the reaction of who it's being said to and then there's more to read and it cut to someone else and GAH! I didn't finish reading the sentence before it switched! Oh sure I think I know what it said and there's someone else laughing at a joke and- wait what was the joke? Godammit I missed it again! For the record, I implore you to take this argument with an enormous grain of salt as it is me complaining about how I can't read faster than a race horse pisses.

As I said this movie does not go without Tarantino's obnoxious influence. In this case they are deterring cutscenes explaining Hugo Stiglitz's (Til Schweiger) existence and Shosanna's plan to burn down the cinema. They come out of nowhere and if it wasn't for their specific relevance to the previous scene, they're that close to being complete non-sequitirs. Aside from being unnecessary they could have been explained with more dialogue but maybe Quentin realized there was too much of that already and decided to switch it up a bit. As if that wasn't enough we get a monologue from Samuel L. Jackson explaining each one and as much as I do like my fair share of Sammy J movies, his surprise appearance just takes me out of it. It's yet another example of Tarantino showing off his pride of being a filmmaker; doing something just because he can or he thinks it's artsy and cool. Then again Uwe Boll does the same thing with the same mentality with the only difference being his notion of "quality" so I suppose I should be grateful. At least Tarantino knows how to make his films entertain... to a point anyway.

Tarantino has been going around calling this his masterpiece. As far as that statement goes, I consider this movie "masterpiece" material like I consider Myspace a networking site. Although if someone's masterpiece is relative to the quality of their previous work than I suppose this could come close especially when compared to something like Deathproof. Despite my gripes and petty complaints Inglourious Basterds is good, in fact really good. It's one of the first Tarantino films I've enjoyed in a long time. Now I have just another 5 or 10 years of blubbering obnoxiousness before I enjoy another one of his films again.