# INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - film review



## Danno1975 (Mar 30, 2009)

On behalf of my mate Paul Hussy........

I approached this movie with a sense of trepidation. Ever since the dreadful Kill Bill (seriously do not get me started) I am always nervous about seeing a new Tarantino movie. I have been a huge Tarantino fan since the first time I read the scripts to and saw the films of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. It is probably very true to say I love those films. Jackie Brown was a good movie but not a patch on the previous two, but then came Kill Bill, or to be more precise Kill Bill volume one which absolutely crushed me (imagine how crushed you’d be if you found out someone like Peter Duncan or Janet Ellis were nonces – it would destroy you) when I saw it in the cinema. In fact I found it so poor that it made The Matrix Revolutions look fantastic. When Death Proof was released, after the debacle that was Grindhouse failed miserably, I waited till DVD before forcing myself to watch it. It was a fun movie and restored some of my previous good feelings about QT but it wasn’t great. And finally that brings us to his WWII movie, or rather his spaghetti western styled exploitation war fantasy movie set during World War Two. 



The script for this film has been available online for ages, I tracked it down after reading QT’s interviews about how he’s been making this for 10 years and this is his version of a Dirty Dozen style ‘men on a mission’ war movie. After reading the script I got the Kill Bill sweats. It had it’s moments but it really wasn’t very good at all. The ‘men on a mission’ were barely in it and the main chunk of the film seemed concerned with a Jewish girl running a cinema in Nazi occupied Paris. Flashbacks of 2003 were very prevalent in my mind. 



Now that digression is out of the way let’s crack on to my thoughts on the movie. 



The film is a bit of a mess. It’s split into five chapters, similarly to K.B. vol1, which never really gel 100% together. The Basterds of the title are not the focus of the movie and only appear in 3 out of the five chapters and a lot of the scenes go on for far too long, which makes you wish QT had been a little more ruthless in his editing. In fact I do think that you could make very minor edits to practically every scene and you’d probably shave about 20 minutes out of the running time. 



None of the above negatives really matter as this film is just so much damn fun. Gleefully ignoring history and just basically making a fun movie QT seems to have recaptured some of his charm. The movie, despite the long scenes and 150 minute running time pretty much flies by. The dialogue is probably the best he’s written since Pulp Fiction, with some superb laugh out loud gags as well as some very tense moments. The 20 minute opening scene is superb with the SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) questioning a French farmer as to whether he is hiding a Jewish family and which sets the movie on its path. Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine is superb, chewing some scenery with aplomb and obviously having an absolute ball with a terrific accent and some nice facial expressions (you’ll see what I mean). Eli Roth is okay, thankfully not given too much to do, Diane Kruger and Michael Fassbender both seem to have good fun with their roles and Til Schweiger is absolutely perfect as the psychotic Hugo Stiglitz. The rest of the cast, including some fun cameos are all good and acquit themselves admirably. The show piece performance though belongs to Waltz’s Hans Landa, nicknamed ‘The Jew Hunter’ he is a marvellous character, at once amiable yet terrifying, and a real force to be reckoned with. He is a perfect foil for Pitt’s Raine. 



Do not be surprised if you read Christoph Waltz’s name in the Best Supporting Actor Oscar category next year.



The music for the most part is very entertaining, even amusing at times, riffing a lot of Ennio Morricone spaghetti western style music and even a (ill judged perhaps) David Bowie track and the film as a whole looks gorgeous. This is some of the best cinematography that QT has employed since Pulp Fiction. Some of his scenes have been directed in true Spaghetti Western style with lots of facial close ups and overblown music which are good fun, particularly if like me you are a fan of the classics like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Django. There’s even a Monty Python moment which is terrific. 



The film is not a big action flick set during WWII which annoyingly is how QT has been talking it up, there is actually very little violence in it, or rather it might be better to say there is more talking than killing because when the film is violent it’s very violent with bullets and blood exploding all over the place. There are some very graphic scalpings and an extremely graphic scene of a man having his head smashed apart with a baseball bat. The ending is also a hugely OTT orgy of blood and bullets including quite a horrible moment but overall there are long patches between the violence and the violent scenes are not particularly sustained. 



So a big return to form for Tarantino although it is not quite the masterpiece we were hoping for. Easily his best film since Pulp Fiction. This is a very entertaining and very funny movie that is well worth catching.


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## MOB (Oct 27, 2005)

I'm looking forward to seeing this on Friday

Not as much as District 9 though - I cannot wait for that to hit the cinemas


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## DubbedUP (Oct 2, 2007)

Great movie and cracking review mate. You could give that [email protected] James King a run for his money.

Oh and I am glad that I was not the only one that actually found myself liking Hans Landa.. He seemed like a nice bloke, in a genocidal, mental, nazi kind of way... :lol:


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## col85 (Jan 28, 2009)

MOB said:


> I'm looking forward to seeing this on Friday
> 
> Not as much as District 9 though - I cannot wait for that to hit the cinemas


i enjoyed IB, but it wasnt what i expected

Ive seen D9, also wasnt what i expected. Wasnt bad tho, just different to how the trailer makes out


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## Dodo Factory (Apr 11, 2007)

Nice review... thinking of seeing it so thank you Mr Sight and Sound


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## Alex_225 (Feb 7, 2008)

Watched it at the weekend, all I will say is don't expect it to be an easy film to watch. 

Subtitles galore and it is very typically Tarantino. Couldn't work out if it was quite a work of genius or a bit sh!t. Although I found it very interesting and there are some very funny bits in the film. 

Very typically Tarantino in that it's exactly what you weren't expecting.


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

Kill Bill was ace!


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## Danno1975 (Mar 30, 2009)

Brazo said:


> Kill Bill was ace!


Yeah I loved it too, but Paulie is very demanding LOL ..................


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## tur8o (Jun 11, 2009)

i liked kill bill. liked inglourios basterds lots. wasnt over impressed with district 9.


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## UBRWGN (Nov 25, 2007)

Great thread.
Inglourious Basterds was very good.
My wife and I needed a few minutes to let the movie sink in after the final scene. LOL
Typical Tarantino and I think the Landa character was written (and acted) brilliantly, a really fascinating portrayal.


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## WHIZZER (Oct 25, 2005)

nice review


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