Inglourious Basterds

And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin' one thing and one thing only... killin' Nazis.

Just awesome.

Just finished watching Inglorious Bastards and still not quite sure what to make of it. It enthralled and irritated me in equal measure. The music was excellent. There were some beautiful shots and some wonderfully tense, well scripted scenes – the opening scene, the strudel scene, the game in the bar. And I loved that the French characters spoke French and the German characters spoke German – none of your 'Allo Allo' style Germans speaking English to each other in bad German accents. And it had August Diehl. And it didn't bother me at all that it changed history, films always do. Although I think I'd have preferred it if I hadn't known beforehand that it did.

But on the other hand, there were a few things that bothered me. Mike Myers, for one, in his Austin Powers English accent cameo. When the poor German accent of the English spy is a plot point... well, perhaps it was deliberate. The whole film, frankly, could have been done (and better) without the eponymous basterds. Shoshanna's side of the story is much more interesting. I wasn't keen on Brad Pitt in this at all, although I know others have praised him. Adopting a Tennessee drawl and a constipated squint doesn't quite cut it as an acting performance for me. And the style of the film wasn't quite as consistent as it could have been. Some of it was quite restrained by Tarantino standards, but then we got a burst of voiceover and little cartoon arrows pointing out who everyone is – I think it needed either more of that, earlier on, or none at all. It lacked the kinetic style of Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill but failed to quite replace it with anything solid and the odd bursts of grim humour didn't quite gel, for me. There's no subtlety to it. Although perhaps I shouldn't be looking for subtlety in a Tarantino movie.

The whole concept of the film bothered me a bit. It's basically an orgy of revenge. It's like fanfiction for history.

Great review Thurs, pretty much agree on everything. Except for the last bit, but I don't think you liked Kill Bill either, which was an all out revenge extravaganza, only much more cohesive and succesful...

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You're right, I didn't like Kill Bill, for a whole host of reasons I won't go into now. But the thing about Inglourious Basterds is that it isn't so much a revenge movie as a revenge fantasy. It's not characters taking revenge on characters - the characters of the Basterds are never developed beyond "we're gonna be doin' one thing and one thing only... killin' Nazis." It's like a ten year old first hearing about the holocaust and saying 'yeah, well if I'd been there we'd have had this whole secret army of Jews and we'd have gone round scalping Nazis and we'd have trapped Hitler and a bunch of Nazis in a cinema and we'd have pumped them full of bullets and set fire to them and then blown them up.' It's kind of... immature.

Which is a shame, because parts of it really are brilliant. I think Tarantino needs to co-write with someone who can rein him in a bit.

At last I watched Inglourious Basterds, and I loved it. Like Thurs, I particularly liked that people spoke in their own language and also loved the tension in some of the scenes. The opener in which Landau broke down the farmer almost made me sweat too!
Yes, there were silly bits and Mike Myers was in one of them, but I dunno, I always find it difficult to be hard to Tarantino. His enthusiasm no matter how misguided some people find it, always endears his films to me. His reverence of older actors for one, his seeking out Rod Taylor to do Churchill, his giving that little cameo to Castellari, that sort of thing makes me smile. As does his cinematic references (Pabst etc) to me they're not self indulgent, they're a likeable trait. Doesn't mean to say I'm a huge fan of his films, Death Proof bored me, Jackie Brown remains my favourite , but Inglourious Basterds was very entertaining and will be worth another view.

I didn't like this movie at all. I've tried to watch it twice, but haven't made it all the way through either time. The first time I fell asleep, and the second time I just gave up and cut it off. I really wanted to like this, but can't. It was just so boring. I felt like the whole thing was just talking, and talking about a lot of nothing that went nowhere. If he had just cut the dialogue down a bit it would be better or at least made dialogue more relevant. I know that there is supposed to be a really good ending, but if I have to fast forward to make it there, then is it worth it.

That couldn't have been a surprise, christine.

I agree with you to a degree, there is a lot of dialogue, but not an excessive amount, its really about character progression, and there is a lot of action as well, I completely disagree with you when you said that the dialogue wasn't relevant to the plot, small parts strayed but most of it was very involved in the plot, and it was terrific character development i think and some very good scenes thanks to Tarantino

the ending by the way is amazing, you should have a monster, and sit through it to see it cause its very interesting

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I had to watch Inglourious Basterds twice to really "get" it. And it was worth the repeated viewing as I know think that this may be his most accomplished film. I too did not find much to like about Kill Bill, but this has more than made up for it. If nothing else, I think this has some of the best acting he's ever directed. Waltz is amazing.

I just read that Hitler's favorite dessert was whipped cream. Wonder if that's why QT threw in a few beats about cream in the dining scene.

Very good review. all those points hit home, particularly Austin Powers and Pitt's exaggerated acting.

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Not the best Tarantino film for me but the most developed in quality.