Inglourious Basterds

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It's a hit!

This is a tough one to review...equal parts hilarious, gory, and even exploitive, Inglourious is trying really hard to say something. I'm just not ... (show more)

This is a tough one to review...equal parts hilarious, gory, and even exploitive, Inglourious is trying really hard to say something. I'm just not exactly sure what. Part of me thinks it's a look at how it takes additional violence to stop the violent, and that neither side is right when innocents are in the crossfire. Part of me thinks it's a commentary on just how far is permissible when you look to take out a dictator of any sort. And I fully realize it's an homage to war movies and even maybe spaghetti westerns, to boot. But then, I remember this is a Tarantino movie, so I wasn't sure. I did some digging and found this quote from Tarantino in the Hollywood Reporter: "It'll be epic and have my take of the sociological battlefield at that time with the racism and barbarism on all sides – the Nazi side, the American side, the black and Jewish soldiers and the French..." So there ya' go, from Tarantino himself - it IS a look at how brutal war gets, and how really, ultimately, it's the innocent that pay the price.

All that and I haven't even really touched on the movie itself. At the very least, that should tell you it's going to generate discussion. Whether you react to the violence (actually fairly tame for a Tarantino movie) or try to uncover a theme or message, or even just comment on the fact that once again, Brad Pitt proves that he's actually a very good actor given the right script and director (see 12 Monkeys also), you will leave the movie with SOMETHING to talk about. And that's the mark of a solid film. (show less)

 

 

by Brandon

No, it's a flop!

No main characters. No main storyline. over 50 minutes of wasted time in lengthy meaningless hyperbole. The opening scene alone was probably 25 ... (show more)

No main characters. No main storyline. over 50 minutes of wasted time in lengthy meaningless hyperbole. The opening scene alone was probably 25 minutes long and could have easily been removed from the film but for a few minutes of important story building without all the vain attempts of comparing rats and squirrels.
The film does nothing for character development so in the end the whole list of surviving characters are but two dimensional paper masks to be laughed at in that not really funny way that one laughs at some one's misfortune. We should be laughing at the death of Tarantino's intellect, for his gift of story telling continues to drizzle into the proverbial 1970's gutter of bad and exploitative film making. He really was born twenty years to late.

Who were the Basterds? Who knows, surely not us, for their purpose is just to kill "natzy's" and instead of taking time to actually build the characters into something we could learn to appreciate, we are merely smothered with the blanket of a host of other new faces, to the point that over an hour into the movie a two new characters are introduced for almost no reason.

How ironic that Hilter was laughing at the slaughter of Allied soldiers by a crazed sniper, yet five minutes later the guy with the three gallons of coke and garbage bag of popcorn sitting next to me laughed as the Basterds went crazy with their machine guns...apparently the point of the insanity of it lost on the audience.

Re-writing history for the sake of a couple of bad jokes.

I'm sure this movie will do great in the box office. (show less)

 

 

by Karry Dayton

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  I just saw this and really don't know how to react. It's a schizophrenic picture, full of excellent bits of dialogue and acting, but too much to the extent that it collapses in on itself and comes to an abrupt end after 150-odd sprawling minutes. In keeping with it's bi-polar style, I'll divide this review into plus and negative points.

  PLUS: Christoph Waltz's performance - in keeping with the comic book feel, this is a sinuous, hyper-real Nazi who seems exaggerated but you suspect may hav... (show more)

  I just saw this and really don't know how to react. It's a schizophrenic picture, full of excellent bits of dialogue and acting, but too much to the extent that it collapses in on itself and comes to an abrupt end after 150-odd sprawling minutes. In keeping with it's bi-polar style, I'll divide this review into plus and negative points.

  PLUS: Christoph Waltz's performance - in keeping with the comic book feel, this is a sinuous, hyper-real Nazi who seems exaggerated but you suspect may have been a composite of several SS commanders. This is definitely awards-worthy stuff: his character isn't a cardboard cutout movie villain, all death scare and sneer, but a calculating, insidious, unlikely mastermind of manipulation. Genuinely worth sitting thru the movie for!

  Period feel - the whole thing is a parody of WWII, a revenge fantasy if you will, but shot with authenticity. the production design and other aesthetics make it feel like this did happen in a specific time and place. QT goes back in time for the first time, and is successful

  NEGATIVE - the Basterds - don't know why this film has been sold with them as the protagonists, they're not developed as a group like the Dirty Dozen or even Kelly's Heroes. Brad Pitt is no Lee Marvin, tho his performance improves as the film progresses and you slowly realise it's all just a big ride. but the rest of them are pretty unmemorable, and Eli Roth is atrocious as the second in command. didn't his performace in DEath Proof tell QT anything?

  TOO MANY STORIES - (show less)

   

  by Hywel on Aug 21, 2009 at 12:05AM

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  Tarantino ´s ´Inglorious Basterds´ , winner of the 2009 Cannes Best Actor award for Christoph Waltz, delivers an power packed action movie in the sweeping style of Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone. Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses but escapes the massacre of her family in while hiding by SS colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and his troops in occupied France. Lt. Aldo ¨Apache¨ Raine (Brad Pitt) leads a group of eight Jewish commandos in France whose mission is to exact retribu... (show more)

  Tarantino ´s ´Inglorious Basterds´ , winner of the 2009 Cannes Best Actor award for Christoph Waltz, delivers an power packed action movie in the sweeping style of Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone. Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses but escapes the massacre of her family in while hiding by SS colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and his troops in occupied France. Lt. Aldo ¨Apache¨ Raine (Brad Pitt) leads a group of eight Jewish commandos in France whose mission is to exact retribution by killing as many Nazis as possible and scalp them - recreating the myth of the return of the avenging Golem. Three years after the massacre Shossana is running her cinéma-de-quartier in Paris under her new identity, where she is told that the German high command decides to launch in the theatre a patriotic propaganda movie, whose principal star has shown interest in her. At the same time Aldo with his men and the assistance of their German agent actress, Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) plan to introduce themselves to the theatre as her Italian movie colleagues and bomb and kill the Nazis in attendance. Thus Shossana and Aldo men´s destinies cross on opening night with parallel plans to blow/burn up the cinéma where Hitler is assisting. Landa, meanwhile uncovers the plot, kills Hammersmark and captures Raine; he then concludes a deal of immunity and safe conduct with Aldo´s superior in allowing Hitler and his high command to be killed, to bring WWII to a swift end. High entertainment with little required of the spectator except to keep munching on the pop-corn. 09-45 Paris 5Sep09 (show less)

   

   

  by Hal Carim on Sep 07, 2009 at 06:15PM

  Watched

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