Inglourious Basterds
Universal Pictures
R
153 Minutes
2009
The word "genius" is a word that gets thrown around too often. I'm no stranger to hyperbole and frequently use adjectives such as fantastic, terrific, amazing, and so on to describe motion pictures or albums, but I rarely use the term "genius." That word is reserved for only those experiences that go even beyond the exemplary; the experiences that remind you why you love going to the movies or listening to music in the first place.
It is with great enthusiasm that I write this: Inglourious Basterds, the latest epic from writer/director Quentin Tarantino, is a work of pure, utter genius.
It has been a long time since I have gone to the cinema and been so completely engrossed and riveted to the screen. Consider that the film, as with the majority of Tarantino's others, is largely constructed of lengthy dialogue exchanges and that speaks volumes. Let the record show that I believe Quentin Tarantino is, hands down, the best screenwriter in the business of making movies. His ability to craft scenes that rely solely on the performances of the actors - no action, no CGI, nothing to distract you - is unmatched, and Inglourious Basterds thrives on such scenes.
There is no doubt that this is his best work since the seminal Pulp Fiction, a fact which the director himself even echoed in the Hollywood Reporter. The most common complaint Tarantino's films face is that they're too talky, too drawn out, or too boring, but I've always found that to be their greatest strength. When Tarantino writes a scene where two characters are face to face, engaged in conversation, magic just happens. In an industry that churns out by-the-numbers action films with $300 million budgets for special effects to dazzle you or insipid, nearly identical romantic comedies, it is incredibly refreshing to see a truly story-driven film like Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, or Basterds.
Split into five chapters whose threads are all tied together in some way or another, Inglourious Basterds is an alternate history World War II epic. Like Pulp Fiction, it tells separate stories that eventually intersect, and each one is as captivating as the last. Just when you think it can't get any better than the last segment, the bar is raised again. Scene after scene I was left holding my breath, wondering "How could this get ANY better?" - and I was never left disappointed. A film buff himself, Tarantino knows exactly how to pull the audiences strings. He is a master at building tension, when it comes to dark humor, he is second to none, and he knows how to give the viewers a big payoff that will surely having them hooting, hollering, cheering, and clapping in their seats.
The film's opening chapter, subtitled Once Upon A Time in Nazi-Occupied France, is arguably the most brilliant footage the director has ever captured and it serves as an introduction to one of the film's key characters, Colonel Hans Landa of the SS (Christoph Waltz). Landa has been given the task of hunting down all the Jews in France, and he arrives at a dairy farm suspected of hiding one of the missing families on his list. He flashes a pleasant smile, speaks fluent French, and enjoys a glass of fresh milk from the nervous farmer as he runs down his list of questions about the Jewish families who once inhabited the area. Landa has been given the name "The Jew Hunter" throughout France, a title he's proud of, and he demonstrates how he earned his nickname with a gleefully evil smile on his face.
If Christoph Waltz is not nominated for a Best Actor, or at least Best Supporting Oscar, then the entire Academy is a sham. Waltz gives one of the best performances of the decade as Landa. He's obviously a sophisticated man, but he relishes his vile job. He's pleasant, but threatening and intimidating all at the same time. In truth, anything less than winning an Oscar would be a crime against cinema. Waltz is beyond brilliant, beyond amazing - his performance is legendary.
Not one to shy away from violence and humor, Tarantino introduces us to the Basterds themselves in the second segment; the one for which the movie itself is named. Here we meet Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), a Teneessee-born Jewish-American soldier whose eight man unit is charged with one thing - "killin' Nazis." To prove their mettle, Raine charges his men with bringing him 100 Nazi scalps - a task that Tarantino doesn't mind showing the audience on several occasions. The group's exploits have an effect, and word of their deeds even reaches Adolf Hitler himself, played as a hyperactive caricature by Martin Wuttke, when the Basterds carve a swastika into the forehead of a soldier before setting him free.
Pitt puts all of his considerable charisma into playing Raine, and Tarantino provides him with the film's funniest lines. As spoken by Pitt with a comical Southern accent, these chuckle-worthy lines become uproariously funny - particularly later in the film when he attempts to speak Italian. This should come as no surprise to anyone, as Pitt has proved himself as a gifted actor many times in the past.
A big surprise does come in the form of Eli Roth, however. The director of the abominable Hostel pictures, Roth has a small supporting role as the Basterds's Sergeant Donny Donowitz - better known as "The Bear Jew" in the Nazi ranks and whose speciality is beating Nazi soldiers to death with a baseball bat. Roth conjures a Bostonian accent for the role, and performs surprisingly well in his limited time on screen, playing mostly comic relief - though he does get one glorious honor that I won't spoil for anyone. There are even two surprise cameos sure to make Tarantino fans smile knowingly, though only their voices are used.
Each and every performance is, at the very least, noteworthy, if not deserving of high praise. Perhaps no performance deserves to be showered with kind words more than Waltz's, but Mélanie Laurent's turn as Jewish outlaw Shosanna Dreyfus is a close second. Dreyfus, now a cinema owner living under the name of Emmanuelle Mimieux, is the lone survivor of Col. Landa's attack on the dairy farm, and she draws the attention of a German war hero, Frederick Zoller - a sniper who survived a three day standoff with 300 American soldiers. Zoller is smitten by Emmanuelle, but his attempts to woo her are met with cold, hard disdain. Unfortunately, Zoller is the subject of a new Nazi propaganda film by Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) and Emmanuelle's cinema seems to be the perfect place for the big premiere.
As she sits in a room surrounded by Nazis, you can see Laurent's every emotion; discomfort, hatred, fear - all perfectly displayed in her subtle body language. This sequence, part of the film's third chapter, contains another one of the best exchanges Tarantino has ever written or directed when Emmanuelle is confronted with Landa's presence. You'll be on the edge of your seat for the duration of the scene as he questions her about her theater and orders a glass of milk, wondering "does he know?" It's the type of spellbinding moment that you just don't see in most movies anymore, and it's done entirely with excellent writing and pacing.
What makes Inglourious Basterds such a brilliant work is that these types of things are peppered throughout the picture. There isn't just one scene that leaves you riveted, holding your breath as the uncomfortable silence lingers just a little too long between the characters, but numerous scenes. Raine interrogating Nazi prisoners in a ditch or a wounded German actress who works as an informant for the Americans, Landa questioning the very same actress with his menacing, loaded questions as he hides behind his smile, or his inevitable meeting with Raine himself, and Allied forces posing as German officers in a bar when they're interrupted by a suspicious Major in Hitler's army. These scenes not only draw you in, but they're so good you actually find yourself wishing they were even longer.
Just over two and a half hours long, Inglourious Basterds doesn't feel a minute of its length. By the time it was over, I felt like it had just begun. I became so enamored with what was going on that I completely lost my sense of time. The payoff at the end of the film is spectacular, and cheers erupted throughout the theater - the first time I've experienced such a thing since last summer's The Dark Knight.
It bears repeating that Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino's best work since Pulp Fiction. There's no question of that. The question is: Is it better than Pulp Fiction? Only time will truly tell, but I am inclined to say that it is at least on par with it. This is Tarantino absolutely doing what he does best. This is what his fans have been waiting for. This could very well be his masterpiece. This is a work of genius.
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