Inglourious Basterds
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Universal Pictures, 2009
By Brian Last
Shut your brain off, forget everything you learned in history, and let’s go to war. Quentin Tarantino is back rewriting history with another violent and irreverent film. After taking quite a long time to put this film out, the hype and anticipation grew immensely. I went in with mixed feelings and I left the same way.
This film takes place during World War II while the Nazis occupied France. Our focus is on a small troop of Jewish-American soldiers whose main goal is carrying out a killing spree of any and all Nazis, and taking down good ol’ Adolf of course. They get their chance to take a shot at the SS during a formal film premiere by a popular German director and propaganda peddler. However, more are gunning for them than they think: the theatre’s new owner, a young Jewish girl who hosts the event, has her own personal score to settle.
In a film that is supposed to be a war film — and a Tarantino war film, no less — I would expect the action to be plentiful. In reality the action scenes are few and far between, and very brief. For a film where they talk about killing Nazis 24/7, it amounts to mainly talk. A lot of scenes had long stretches of dialogue where I found myself asking, “Where are they going with this and will they be reaching their point any time soon?” By the time the characters do reach their point there is usually little payoff. Each scene could’ve easily been cut down by a few minutes and it would have helped to keep the viewers’ attention and improved the flow of the film. Even though it is a war film, and I expected it to be long, this was too long. I gave it the benefit of the doubt because there was a solid story there to develop, but this was just excruciating. Newsflash, QT — sometimes less is more!
Tarantino did return to two of his film staples: violence and offending minorities. He got a few digs in at the African community — surprise, surprise — but he also dipped his toe into the anti-Semite pool. I don’t know if it was included in an attempt to portray the Nazi mindset or simply for shock-value racism. Tarantino loves his violence, and I am fairly desensitized, but some of the violence in this film was just gross and more unnecessary than in Kill Bill. Correct me if I’m wrong, but did that movie not hold the record for the highest body count?
Now for the good parts. Yes, for all my criticism, I did find some gems. Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz were fantastic and really saved the movie. Without them, this film would’ve been hot garbage, but they brought it up to the lower end of average. They were hilarious and Tarantino wrote for them very well. I also applaud Tarantino for going with a new cast of characters and stepping out of his comfort zone. Even though I heard a few memorable voices, I’ll let it slide. If it worked for other big name directors who’ve recently put out new films (Spike Lee, Kevin Smith), why not let Tarantino fall back on some of his staples? I also applaud Tarantino for the effort; war films are never easy and neither is stepping out of your genre.
That said, Inglourious Basterds ultimately didn’t work for me. In comparison to other war films of recent memory, I would put Miracle at St. Anna and Passchendaele above this. Tarantino gave it the old college try, but no director has a perfect record. See it for what it is — his other films repackaged in a new box, but don’t expect anything new. After all, he really never has reinvented the wheel, despite the claims of his diehard supporters.
Hmm.
Not to be rude, but your surprise at the pacing and dialogue content of this film suggests that you have the wrong impression of Tarantino movies. If you think back, I believe he has precisely one movie with an abundance of action: Kill Bill part 1. Every other movie he’s done is in the neighborhood of 80% dialogue. He’s kind of like a hyperviolent version of Kevin Smith with a little less cuss words.
And when you say “I also applaud Tarantino for going with a new cast of characters and stepping out of his comfort zone. Even though I heard a few memorable voices, I’ll let it slide,” what in the name of QT are you talking about? Tarantino doesn’t often re-use actors in his films. I assume you’re referring to Sam Jackson, who was in Jackie Brown, and Pulp Fiction — he also does the narration for Basterds and is in about two seconds of Kill Bill part 2, but those aren’t roles, they’re cameos. Anyone who accuses Tarantulatino of re-hashing actors in all his movies need to actually watch his movies. In fact, I think the only person who appears in IB who has been in a Tarantino film before is the soothing velvety voice of Sam Jackson, which I hardly think qualifies as “falling back on some of his staples.”
And finally, this racism point. Are you crying racism because a Nazi referred to a black man as a negro? Because that’s about the only anti-black thing I can recall. There is nothing racist about this movie except the main villain of the movie, which is master-race-loving-and-everyone-who-isn’t-us-can-fuck-off-and-die Nazi Germany, otherwise known as the most racist entity ever. To be honest, if I DIDN’T see some examples of racism in this movie I’d be a little annoyed, because history tells me that Nazis weren’t too fond of the Jews after all. Then again (SPOILER ALERT), history also tells me that Hitler shot himself in the head in a dirty bunker.
I do agree with you though, this film is like all of Tarantino’s films, at least in some ways. He has a distinct style and it’s hard to watch a QT film (or hear the dialogue anyway) and NOT think it’s Tarantino. Though I haven’t seen him do his out-of-sequence style of scene presentation in a while. You’re correct in saying that viewers shouldn’t go into this expecting a big war action movie, and one of my complaints is that there weren’t enough Basterds doing basterdly things. But I still liked it and think it’s worth a watch.
Dude, they’re Nazis. They’re supposed to be racist…
Don’t blame Tarantino, blame the marketing people.
Inglourious Basterds was never intended to be an action-packed war film, Tarantino himself said so.
The Weinstein Company, in all their wisdom, advertised otherwise.
The movie is okey-dokey…
…like porn for the nazi-hater in all of us (well at least most of us) with snappy dialogue, and excellent visuals and performances.