Year: 2009
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino & Eli Roth (Uncredited)
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, both a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers and a theatre owner have a plan to assassinate the Nazi leaders, while their plans overlap.
- This review contains spoilers.
I feel like all my Tarantino reviews start like this, but I remember seeing the beginning of this film when I was younger. And like every film, my dad showed me that piece. He was mostly showing it to prove how good Tarantino's soundtracks are. And that's the first thing I noticed about Inglourious Basterds. The soundtrack definitely does it job. The film is thrilling on its own, yet the soundtrack made that thrill even better. And I am very glad to hear some David Bowie on Tarantino's work. I'm starting to think Tarantino is my musical soul mate.
Even when you know about history, you're still very excited to find out what happens, and how the assassination plots turn out. Of course history doesn't seem to mean shit to QT, which means the story develops into something I wasn't expecting. In a way, this is way better. We all know how history goes. Any movie is a fantasy, and unless it's a documentary or a biography, why should we care how it really went down? Another thing I like about the story is how the two plots overlap. You sit there watching and wondering if the two sides ever find out about each other. It's an interesting concept.
The characters are interesting. They are people with different personalities, different kind of back stories, yet their paths happen to cross. Well, I can't be so sure about the Nazi characters, they didn't seem that interesting - but was that on purpose, on accident or just me? I guess either of those three would tell a lot. But of course Cristoph Waltz' character Col. Hans Landa is very interesting. You start to feel like he'd be one of the most loyal people, yet he's ready to betray all the Nazi leaders if he gets what he wants out if it. That's kind of a plot twist, yet it's not too surprising. How loyal can anyone really be in the end? But almost every character adds something very interesting to the story. Raine, Shoshanna, Donowitz, Hammersmark, Hicox, Stiglitz... They are all very interesting characters, yet it's only Landa I can write about the most. It's his motives that interest me.
I always hate those American war movies where everyone speaks English but just with accent. I thought Inglourious Basterds would be the same. It was a mystery if it would be so good I could forgive the excessive use of English but no! Of course people speak English in Inglourious Basterds, but only when it makes sense at least to some extent. Inglourious Basterds is mostly in German and French. Thank god for that!
Of course I don't have too much experience with war movies, but I've always kind of assumed the violent to be different from typical action movies. Well, of course in a Tarantino war movie the violence is how he does it best.
It's interesting how this movie portrays propaganda films made in Nazi Germany. Well 'portray' is not the right word, because there aren't a lot of ways to portray propaganda. But knowing what kind of film enthusiastic QT is makes it interesting trying to see if you can get his views on propaganda out of the film. It would be an interesting thing to discover and analyse some more.
Inglourious Basterds is a brilliant movie, and it surpassed my expectations, no matter how high they happened to be. I have to say I've chosen my favourite director well.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
10 / 10
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