Inglourious Basterds

This is just a review of the Blu-Ray "2 Disc Special Edition" since there are plenty of reviews of the movie itself by reviewers far more qualified than I.

The video and sound quality is excellent and I have no complaints about that. But I have to give this 4 stars instead of 5, because, I just don't get some of the "marketing lingo" on this package:

* This version does NOT include a running commentary. None at all (not director, not actors, not cinematographer, nothing). To me this is really odd -- it seems that almost all DVDs released in the last 10 years have had some sort of commentary track. Especially with a Tarantino movie, this seems like something you really WANT to have.
* I think this is the only Blu-ray version available right now. It includes the "digital copy" but that is just a lower-res copy of a movie with DRM, nothing wrong with getting that with it, but that is one of the TWO discs in the "Special Edition"
* If this is the only one available, and it doesn't include stuff like a commentary, what makes the Marketing people put the "Special Edition" tag on it? I guess because it comes with the low-res copy, see previous item...
* Other info on the package is misleading too. It says under "Additional Features:" "The original Inglorious Bastards." This might lead one to conclude that it includes the original movie (and there would be plenty of room for an SD copy of a movie on a Blu-ray disk. This feature is just a 10-minute summary of the movie and discusses it's relation to the new movie. A nice feature worth watching, but I think the way it is named as a feature is misleading.
* Minor thing: They put a sticker about "Includes Digital Copy" on the metallic-printed cardboard sleeve. When you take off the sticker, it removes part of the metallic printing. I know these sleeves are only meant to make the product look nice and flashy and get your attention when it's on a store shelf. But for those of us that like to keep these, it was annoying the way it was stickered. If they put the sticker on the outer plastic shrink-wrap this wouldn't be a problem.

Still a great movie and I'm glad I got the disc. Giving it 4 of 5 because of the questionable "Special-ness" of the Edition.

One of the great pleasures of Quentin Tarantino movies is the wonderfully inventive casting that he employs. In PULP FICTION, he revived the career of John Travolta, made Samuel Jackson a star, pushed Bruce Willis into another echelon and even helped get Ving Rhames off to a good start. In JACKIE BROWN, he burnished Pam Grier & Robert Forster's careers. In KILL BILL, he reinvented Uma Thurman and reinvigorated David Carradine. Even in DEATH PROOF, he introduced the world to the amazing stuntwoman Zoe Bell and gave Kurt Russell the kind of part he's missed out on for too long.

And now, wonderfully, in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, he's introduced the American viewer to some stellar European actors, namely Melanie Laurent and particularly Christoph Waltz, now an easy favorite for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Tarantino also frequently tries the patience of his viewers with his rococo dialogue and insistence on constantly reminding us that we're watching a movie. In PULP FICTION, all his "habits" were fresh and new to most viewers (because, really, how many of us had seen RESERVOIR DOGS before we saw FICTION?), but over time, we learned that Tarantino was often just a little too pleased with his own screenwriting and often too pleased with his own directing. In a completely off-the-wall piece like the priceless KILL BILL films, everything worked to form a crazy-quilt whole. In INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, he's too clever for his own good at times.

BASTERDS tells the completely untrue story of how World War II might have ended had a group of bloodthirsty, highly trained American Jews been allowed to infiltrate Nazi occupied France with no mission other than to take Nazi scalps. Oh, and how that mission needed to collide with one fateful night when all the top leadership of Germany attended the gala opening of a new propaganda film held at a movie theatre owned by a beautiful French girl who was actually a Jew who had escaped a massacre that had taken her entire family and now she's bent on revenge at any cost. And of how her goal coincides with that of an undercover British agent who just happens to be a German film scholar and a German double agent who happens to be a movie star.

I know that sounds a little confusing. To Tarantino's credit, the plot as laid out in this 150 minute film is actually easy to follow. In fact, he's put everything into easy-to-digest chapters. It does ask us to believe that every important member of the German government & military would all assemble in a fairly public place at one time...but if you can get past that hurdle, there is much vicarious pleasure to be had in watching WWII reinvented by Tarantino.

By far, the best part of the film is Chapter 1. It features Waltz as SS officer Col. Hans Landa in what is easily the most chilling portrayal of a Nazi since Ralph Fiennes donned the uniform in SCHINDLER'S LIST. Fiennes role (and that entire brilliant movie) were for altogether different purposes. Landa comes off more like a Nazi Hannibal Lecter (without the strange dining preferences)...he's a bit of a lone wolf in his own party. He's feared by all, because he has a wonderful BS detector that helps him root out deception at every turn. In the opening scene, which plays out like a delicate one-act play, Landa comes to a humble French farmhouse and speaks with the owner. We know the owner is hiding Jews beneath his floorboard, and we're pretty sure Landa knows it too. Just how he gets that information, through one of the most tense interrogation scenes you'll ever see, is a joy to behold. You literally find yourself not breathing. I leaned forward in my seat. And yet there is never a raised voice, nor a threatening gesture. The screws are applied through intensity of manner. Waltz instantly makes his character a classic. Tarantino the writer has crafted brilliant dialogue, and Tarantino the director films it all with rare taste and simplicity, and Waltz knocks it out of the park.

The rest of the film is more uneven. While Brad Pitt is a goofy delight as Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds...it's a performance that is more campy than believable. His Basterds, including folks like director Eli Roth and B.J. Novak from TV's "The Office" are fairly interchangeable. And strangely, we look forward to them conducting KILL BILL PT. ONE type mayhem, yet they actually use relatively little screentime showing them in action. There is one short, effective scene of their own brand of interrogation...but mostly we have to take the word of other characters (like Hitler himself) that these guys are wreaking havoc on the Nazis.

And during one jarring moment, we are introduced to one of the basterds with a blast of `70s era Blaxploitation music and a `70s era title card. Why? Yes, it was funny...but it took everyone totally out of the spell the movie was weaving. Just as having Michael Myers, in thick but unconvincing makeup, play a British officer hatching a scheme to blow up a movie theater, was very distracting. Myers accent is impeccable, and he plays the part straight...but he's still unmistakably Myers and many audience members snickered when they recognized him. Very distracting.

It's as though Tarantino doesn't quite believe that he can make a straightforward film and have it be riveting. Too bad...because when he gets out of his own way (as he mostly does in the climactic sequences of the film), INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is a cinematic treat. The gorgeous settings and lovely costumes even gave Tarantino a chance to show off and have it fit the tone of the film...but he still insists on going off the rails. "Hey, this is a Tarantino movie!" he seems to want to shout at us. And this causes him to get in the way of the stunning Melanie Laurant, who plays the vengeful theater owner. I've never seen her before, and she is an entrancing presence, whether in casual slacks or a gorgeous formal red dress. She dominates the final portions of the film.

I had a great time at this film, and I recommend it fairly highly. But with 10 minutes less of the sometimes too clever dialogue and 5 minutes less of Tarantino's showboating, and we might have had a true classic of suspense. See it, though, because the two performances I mentioned are worth the price of admission...heck, the opening scene is worth it.

This movie is really pretty outstanding. The opening scene is intense, frightening, shocking, and appauling all at once, and it sets up the entire film perfectly. I really had no expectations for this movie because I had read so many mixed reviews and none of them really said anything, so I actually thought this was a really good movie although a bit drawn out. The film is artfully done beautifully shot and extremely well acted.

Now here's why you may not like this quite as much as I did and why my wife absolutely HATED it.

What most expected from this movie:
1- Gore, action, and more gore and more action
2- A story that follows the Basterds as they wreak havoc on Hitler's army
3- Maybe a few subtitles as the film does take place in France after all
4- Classic Quentin Tarantino comedic dialogue

What the film actually is:
1- A character driven story HEAVY on dialogue and other than the last 20 minutes extremely light on action with a couple pretty graphic gory bits tossed in. The last 20 minutes is extremely graphic and violent.
2- The story largely follows the young Jewish girl/woman who escapes the opening scene. The Basterds are just kind of there as an afterthought because they are planning to blow up the same theater.
3- This film is conservatively speaking about 80% subtitled and spoken either in German or French.
4- The only part that is really funny (and it is hilarious) is Brad Pitt "speaking" Italian so poorly that Helen Keller could have picked him out as the American in the crowd.

I've read negative reviews about how this film is "war porn" and diminishes U.S. veterans in some way, but this couldn't be further from the truth. First of all this film is pure fiction that just happens to take place during WWII in France. Nothing depicted in this film is based in any way on fact. It is a complete fantasy of what could have possibly happened if Hitler and all the Nazi upper echelon had all decided to go to a jewish owned movie theater to watch a propaganda film.

Overall it is an extremely well made film that does just about everything well. It is a little bit drawn out at over 2.5 hours but like I said it is very well done and the acting is superb. 4.5 stars. I'd recommend it but be sure to have an open mind.

***Update***
My wife wants to watch it again. She thinks that maybe due to the fact that we started this at about 2:00 am might have had an effect on her opinion. We'll see. For me personally after a second viewing I like it even more.

Quentin Tarantino is all about the gimmick now. While PULP FICTION was an original, mazelike movie with memorable characters and KILL BILL VOL.1 was the perfect grindhouse kung fu revenge film (modernized for today's audience), everything else he's done feels either half-baked, self-congratulatory, incomplete, or all of the above. I think that in most of his dialogue-driven films (JACKIE BROWN, KILL BILL VOL. 2, DEATH PROOF, and this film INGLORIOUS BASTERDS), Tarantino THINKS he knows how certain people talk. I know that it's supposed to be "his vision" and "just a movie", but there still has to be something for the audience to connect to as it's going on. In most of his films, I feel no connection. And that is definitely true of this film INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS gets off to a promising start introducing us to the despicable Jew Hunter Colonel Hans Landa (played brilliantly by Oscar frontrunner Christoph Waltz) and his interrogation of a French farmer. This tense scene effectively touches upon the evil that was Nazism, especially it's conclusion. Then, the movie falls apart immediately with, ironically, the introduction of the title characters! The Basterd unit, led by Brad Pitt (in a seriocomic role playing Sgt. Aldo Raine) are too distant to the viewer and we get absolutely no handle on what any of them is about, except for perhaps Hugo Stiglitz, but even his intro and backstory is muzzled by Tarantino's self-congratulation by using out-of-place elements from his other films (odd 70s-style subtitles and narration).

There's been a lot of buzz about a second scene in a basement of a Paris bar where a showdown between some of the Basterds and German soldiers occurs. It's a well executed scene, but drags on for way too long and is really devoid of any of the depth or provocation that Tarantino displayed in similarly long scenes in PULP FICTION. The whole time this scene was going on, I was like, "What's the point?!" And after the climax of the scene, we are left with one surviving character (the most annoying of the scene) that we are supposed to empathize with, but all his droning and whining just makes me glad of what actually happened to him. I wish more characters in this were treated to a fitting end to get them out of this mess of a film.

The most interesting characters are the two main females French-Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfuss (heartbreaking Melainie Laurent, whose character is the core of the film) and crafty double-agent German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (sexy Diane Kruger, the second best character in the film behind Hans Landa). While INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS certainly has some good characters in it in addition to the aforementioned ones, they are all trapped in a rather messy film with too much dialogue and in scenes that go absolutely nowhere. Tarantino really lets loose with his histrionics and weirdness in the painfully dull, long, tedious final act.

While the odd, over-the-top final act (with a tacked-on ending) is my biggest complaint with the film, the film overall feels very disconnected and incomplete; the viewer can't connect with the characters due to the overemphasis on talking; they all feel like set pieces, rather than real people. Tarantino has good ideas and executes SOME of them well (esp. the opening scene, which actually has some depth and believability), but steps on his own toes so much that he ends up screwing up his own film. With 70s title threads, jive-talking narrators, music stolen from his previous films (which he already stole from other films!), an idiotic interpretation of Hitler and his falling regime, and even the equivalent of an 80s music video, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS plays like one of Tarantino's dreams (or nightmares if you prefer).

The single disc DVD release is very disappointing. Almost NO special features. Boo! Rent it, don't buy it if you're into special features on DVDs.

Caution: Might Be A Spoiler Review.

Movie Cons:
1) If you don't like really violent scenes, I'd suggest fast-forwarding through them. They're a bit much, in my opinion. I get that it's a Q.T. film but it's always just above and beyond gross.
2) If you go cross-eyes reading subtitles, this may be really challenging.
3) If you have issues with violence towards women, this may bother you.
4) Man, does it twist with WW2 history. Big time. And it is so off with the time-line of early June 1944.
5) A major plot development is never fully explained. How DOES she end up with that movie theater anyway?

Pros:
1)Those caveats aside, this is a really well done film, beautifully shot. Lighting and scenes, set dressing, costumes etc. are really outstanding. I believe they may have made one mistake with the British officer's uniform but that's a small detail. I liked the pacing of the film especially. It really is a character study with adventure and gore thrown in.

2) Christoph Waltz as Col. Landa is simply amazing!! He is so charmingly creepy that I felt like I was being ensnared, undressed and hung out to dry in a slime pit. The first scene is so taut that I had to stop the DVD and breath a bit. You know it's NOT going to end nicely but still, I was riveted. It wasn't over-paced either. Perfect. Funny thing is, I felt watching Mr. Waltz' performance that he probably is a great guy in "real" life. I'd put him down as one of the great film villains!

3) Brad Pitt is handsome and wise-cracking with an accent you could cut concrete with. I'm not a fan of his but he was great!

4) The two lead females are talented and gorgeous. If you wonder why Diane Kruger looks familiar, she was in the National Treasure movies. And she must speak a bunch of languages because her accents (to me) were excellent!

5) If you're multi-lingual and want to brush up on your French, German and Italian, it's great practice!

6) The casting is brilliant, well-done!

I would recommend this movie highly, but if you're squeamish at all, fast forward when the knives, guns and baseball bats come out.

Well, I think other reviewers have already done a terrific job discussing the story and numerous movie references in Quentin Tarantino's latest film "Inglourious Basterds," so I will make my review brief. The real star of "Inglourious Basterds" is neither Brad Pitt nor Diane Kruger. It is Christoph Waltz as COL. Hans Landa, whose great performance deserves its own film.

From the moment he steps into a farmer's house in occupied France (very intense Chapter 1, the best part of the film), we know Tarantino made a right choice. When the film is not boring, his character - smooth-talking, cunning and chilling - is always there. (Almost equally great is Michael Fassbender and the gripping basement scene involving his LT. Archie Hicox should not be missed.)

Probably those who have seen his "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs" must know what is coming in Tarantino's take of a WWII-revenge story set in alternate Europe. Lots of violence have become a kind of trademark of the director (and I personally don't think it is a bad thing for any director), but the violence in his previous movies has never been tasteless like this. Scalping? Hitting a defenseless man with a bat? Surely cinema wins the war, but in a very inglourious way.

This brings me back to where I started: Christoph Waltz. I can forget the tedious dialogues, pointless movie references (Brad Pitt as Aldo "Raine"?) and the presence of wooden Eli Roth, but not the ending which I strongly disagree with. See what happens to the best (and obviously cleverest) character in the film, and you know what I mean. But after all, this is a Brad Pitt film.

This film is total fantasy. A feel good about killing Nazi's kinda flick. There is a lot of sadistic killing in this film which seems almost to relish in it. The plot is totally fantastic, the ending pure lunacy and fantasy. What is the appeal of these super Commando Dirty Dozen WW2 films? Do people like the killing machine elements about them, or just the complete fanatastic violence?? Surely there is so much more that can be made about WW2 that would have its basis in reality, and yet have the entertaining elements that producers seem to think movies like this require.

The true history of WW2 provides many examples of incredible events that could each be made into a worthwhile film that would entertain as well as show actual events. Why create total fantasy? The original film had little to recommend it, but at least it didn't let itself get totally carred away.

This film is a complete waste of time unless you like basic kill the bad guys kinda thing. There is little to recommend it to the serious viewer on the subject. Its a comic book on screen. In fact most WW2 Comic books have a bit more to recommend them than this! If you seek total fantasy and mindless, crual violence then go for it!

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS has its moments. In fact the whole movie would have been better served if Brad Pitt and his commando team had been left out of the movie completely. The story would have been sustainable if the plot was limited to the Jewish cinema manager plotting her revenge against the Germans. The Basterds themselves are a mere subplot lost in the bigger story.

The primary plot is that of a Jewish girl as the sole survivor of a farmhouse massacre. Four years later she finds herself as the proprietor of a Paris cinema where the Germans have planned to screen the French premier of a German sniper movie. As it turns out the leadership of the Third Reich will also be in attendence. The theater is subsequently rigged as a pyrotechnic trap.

So far, so good. Unfortunately Brad Pitt and his blood thirsty band are inserted into the story. Essentially the Basterds have one major scene where they brutally interrogate captured German prisoners while collecting scalps from the German dead. They later play but a small supporting role in the cinema adventure.

One of the things you have to realize about this film is that it is historical fantasy with a comic book quality story. It is not designed to be historically accurate. As such if you are a World War Two buff you have to set aside your expertise and turn a blind eye to the dozens of blatant geographic, uniform, and general historical inaccuracies presented throughout this film.

I give the Quentin Tarantino credit for attempting a European style war film (At least that portion excluding the Basterds). This movie has some similarities to Paul Verhoeven's BLACK BOOK. For that I give it two stars. Otherwise Tarantino was as much out of his depth as when Spike Lee Lee attempted to inject his well-trodden agenda into a World WarTwo drama.

I had read some reviews of this movie when it came out, so I wasn't expecting the best movie ever made, but this was pretty bad. Way, way too talky, many scenes go on much too long, and I was often bored. What I DID like are the European actors, all excellent. The violence didn't bother me that much but the squeamish might want to steer clear. I admire some of Tarantino's work - Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill I particularly - but this piece is poorly paced and the parts don't add up to a unified whole. Brad Pitt and his cohorts seemed to be from a different movie altogether and the American actors seem like amateurs compared to the Europeans (particularly Christoph Waltz and Michael Fassbender, both very impressive here). I wanted to like the film a lot more than I did. I think Tarantino needs to be reined in a bit - it seems like he's a little too fond of his own dialogue.

The ad campaign for this movie was extremely misleading. In the TV ads the only scenes they showed were the ones with the "Basterds". I was surprised that 80% of the dialogue was subtitled, and I agree with one reviewer here that the subtitles raced by awfully quickly at times. I realize that if they had marketed it with Christoph Waltz as the main figure in the advertisement poster, people might have avoided the film because they wouldn't necessarily know who he was, but come ON! Brad Pitt is in such a tiny portion of the movie. Ridiculous. I'm glad I didn't see this in the theater.

I would only recommend this movie on the strength of the European actors' performances, or to die-hard Tarantino fans.

Brad Pitt really slaughters his role badly as the
officer in charge of the "Inglourious Basterds"
Jewish OSS hit team of terrorists.
The action has some of the worst violence
scenes outside of a horror movie,
with scalpings and a fellow beat to death on camera
with a baseball bat.
The idea is that killing all the German high command would have
ended the war early, and the movie is a sort of Jewish fantasy
about killing Nazis.
I found myself wondering that such a film
which is at best a B-film
got mass marketing?