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MOVIE REVIEW: Inglourious Basterds

Posted August 22nd 2009 by Frankie Aguilar.

From the beginning of Inglourious Basterds, every aspect of it is saturated in Quentin Tarantino's style. Love it or hate it, Tarantino's obvious love and knowledge of film seeps into all his work. If you've seen his films, you've come to expect certain elements in them, and Inglourious Basterds does not disappoint. The movie's opening music is a Spanish-infused ballad, the same kind of music that can be found in spaghetti westerns. There's a spaghetti western feel throughout the entire movie. Minimalist filming and continuous shots mixed with Tarantino's signature dialogue and aesthetic violence are all there. As the bare bones opening credits roll, your mind wanders back to all the trailers you've seen. You feel like you know, vaguely, what this movie is all about. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The movie begins on a farm in France in 1941. A small German contingent rides up to a small cottage to question the farmer whom lives there. The exchange that goes on between the farmer and the German commanding officer will bring up memories of the round table discussion of "Like a Virgin" from Reservoir Dogs, or the exchange between Pumpkin and Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction. This conversation surpasses them all. Inglourious Basterds is a period piece, so Tarantino's usual cache of pop culture reference are almost non existent. But his use of period specific material makes for some of the best dialogue he's ever written. The conversation brings to view the heart of the rhetoric that allowed the Nazi party to carry out there planned extermination of the Jews. The German officer is justifying the destruction of a people as calmly as if he were asking for a glass of milk. Inglourious Basterds isn't trying to push any message on you though. On the contrary, it illustrates this idea early and doesn't revisit it.

The title team, the Inglourious Basterds, are a group of American born Jews lead by Lt. Aldo Raine, (Brad Pitt). Pitt's gruff portrayal of an Apache descended, bootlegging, good ole boy from Maynardville, Tennessee, is wonderful to watch. He comes across as a man who revels in the maelstrom of Nazi-occupied France, and in no way is this more prevalent than in his and the Basterds' plan for driving fear into the heart of the Nazi: scalping. He and the Basterds brutally murder almost every Nazi they come across, and remove the scalps of those they kill, branding those they let go.

The opposing force is helmed by Standartenführer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). He plays the calm collected foil to Pitt's eccentric Aldo Raine. But make no mistake both are deranged in their own way. Lada is given the nickname "Jew Hunter" for his role as a detective for the Third Reich in France. Waltz steals the movie through his truly controlled insanity. His detective skills are uncanny and border on omnipotent. His attention to detail coupled with unparalleled comprehension would give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

From the outset, this movie's pacing will catch most off guard. The film is split up into five chapters, alternating between the two distinct groups' paths to the inevitable bombastic climax. You could say that it takes place in an alternate time line or universe, but being a period film it takes advantage of the events of WWII. It paints a fantastic portrait of an alternate history with the colors provided. It never really seems like any parts of this movie couldn't happen. You just know that some parts of it definitely didn't happen.

Language plays a huge role in this film. The movie employs French, German, Italian and English, and the alternation of these language sets the tempo for the movie. The characters are musicians in their use of different languages. It's not simply used as a cop out to allow for certain dialogue to draw your attention. The parts of the movie that are subtitled aren't long and don't feel like a strain to read. Rather the changes in language are games played between the characters, subtle power struggles inputted for out entertainment. There's an exchange among three Basterds and a German officer truly exemplifies this point, and is one of the most dynamically acted scenes in the entire movie.

This isn't an action movie. And even though it has a WWII candy coating with the promise of a spaghetti western center, Tarantino's signature "Mexican standoffs" are more often than not verbal. And in no way is that detrimental to the film. I won't be as quick to laude Inglourious Basterds as Tarantino's finest work. That title is still reserved for Reservoir Dogs in my opinion. But it's nice to see that he can work within his style and still bring us something different while still being spectacular. His usual stylized uber-violence is almost completely absent from this movie, but this further proves that he's not a one-trick pony. Inglourious Basterds is a WWII film that manages to be engrossing without at 20 minute Normandy beach scene. The characters are compelling and the dialogue is superb, and Inglourious Basterds is a more than worthy installment into Tarantino's brilliant catalog.

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