Inglorious Basterds
PLOT:
In 1941, SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) arrives at a dairy farm in France to interrogate Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet) about rumors he is hiding the Jewish Dreyfus family. Landa persuades the farmer to confess to hiding the family underneath his floor. Landa then orders the SS soldiers into the house to shoot the floorboards where they are hiding. The entire family is killed, except the teenage Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), whom Landa allows to escape.
In the spring of 1944, Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) recruits a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers in Italy for a mission to get behind enemy lines and bring fear to all German servicemen. He tells the soldiers that they each owe him a hundred Nazi scalps. They operate with a “take no prisoners” attitude and come to be known as the ‘Basterds’. One survivor of an attack by the ‘Basterds’, Private Butz (Sönke Möhring), is interviewed by Adolf Hitler (Martin Wuttke). Butz’s account of the attack is shown in flashback: his squad was ambushed and his Sergeant was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), known by the Germans as “The Bear Jew”. Butz then reveals that Raine carved a swastika into his forehead with a knife.
In June 1944, Shosanna has assumed a new identity as ‘Emmanuelle Mimieux’ and is operating a cinema in Paris. She meets Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation’s Pride). Zoller is attracted to Shosanna and convinces Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to hold the premiere of his film at Shosanna’s cinema. Shosanna realizes that the presence of several high-ranking Nazi officials provides an opportunity for revenge and resolves to burn down the cinema during the premiere by using a large quantity of extremely flammable nitrate film. The British also learn of the premiere and dispatch Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) to infiltrate the event aided by the ‘Basterds’ and German film actress and double agent, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). Hicox and two of the ‘Basterds’ meet with von Hammersmark at a tavern where a SS Major (August Diehl) notices Hicox’s odd accent and that he gives the wrong (non-German) three-fingered order for drinks. The resulting standoff erupts into a firefight, leaving everyone dead except von Hammersmark. Raine interrogates von Hammersmark, and upon learning that Hitler will be attending the premiere, devises a plan where he, Donny and Omar (Omar Doom) will pose as von Hammersmark’s Italian escorts at the premiere. Landa later investigates the tavern, retrieving von Hammersmark’s shoe and an autographed napkin.
At the premiere, Landa asks to see von Hammersmark privately, where he makes her try on the shoe. After proving that she is in league with the ‘Basterds’, he strangles her. He then orders Raine and Private Utivich (B. J. Novak) to be arrested. Landa makes a deal with Raine’s commanding officer to be granted a full military pension and American citizenship, in exchange for allowing Donny and Omar—still seated in the cinema—to kill the Nazi high command. During the film, Zoller goes to the projection room to see Shosanna and confronts her angrily due to multiple rejections of his advances from the beginning. When his back is turned, she shoots him multiple times, but he manages to shoot her dead before succumbing to his wounds. The film is then interrupted by an inserted close-up of Shosanna informing the audience that they are going to be killed by a Jew. At the same time, Shosanna’s employee and lover, Marcel (Jacky Ido), who has locked and bolted all the exits of the cinema, ignites the nitrate film stacked behind the screen. Omar and Donowitz successfully attack and kill Goebbels and Hitler, then shoot into the crowd of panicking Nazis until the timers on their bombs go off and destroy the cinema, killing everyone inside.
Landa and his radio operator drive Raine and Utivich to the American lines, and according to the deal, Landa surrenders to Raine and hands over his weapons, allowing Utivich to handcuff him. To Landa’s shock Raine then shoots the radio operator and orders Utivich to scalp the dead man. Raine then carves a swastika into Landa’s forehead, proclaiming that “this just might be my masterpiece.”
REVIEW:
Let me start this off by saying that I didn’t watch the entire film. Well, I did, but dozed off in parts. No excuses…just been a long week.
Is it me, or do there seem to be alot of Nazi this or that lately? What’s going on? It’s quite unsettling, if you ask me.
Inglorious Basterds is a fictional tale of a group of mercenary Jews who more or less turned the tables on the Nazis by killing them instead of the other way around. Quentin Tarrantino lives for this kind of morbidly violent stuff, and that is what people like about his films.
However, he does get a bit chatty with the dialogue. Kevin Smith does the same thing with his films, but at least the films move forward. Tarantino’s use of these long speeches an whatnot seem to stop the film dead in its track. This should have been a nice little action flick, and it was going on at a decent pace, then we get to these long expositions and it just takes the audience out of it. There was no reason this should have been 2 1/2 hrs. Well, I guess it could have been, but most of that runtime is due to the excessive talking, most of which has no bearing on the film, but just random words.
Christoph Waltz earned an Oscar for his role as Col. Hans Lander. At first, I was a bit skeptical, but he did do a pretty impressive job, so it was no wonder he won that award.
Brad Pitt as the leader of the basterds, Aldo Raine, complete with some kind of funky southern accent, really sells and hams it up (someone has to in a Tarantino picture, right?).
The action scenes are pretty nice and full of bloody splattering gun violence, which I have no problem, but I’m sure someone out there does.
I’ve read some reviews saying that this film is good, but has no moral value. WTF?!? This isn’t a Disney picture. There is no need for it to have a moral. The idea is just to have some fun with a dark part in history. Geez! Can no one take a joke these days, or does everything have to be strictly cut and dry. Ugh!!!!
I look forward to watching this film again (this time without dozing off in huge chunks). There are some things that I think would make more sense if I would have caught certain parts. I don’t belive this is Tarantino’s best work, and as I said,m he needs to get over his hard on for exposition, but it is a fun flick. Now, if you’re not a fan of gun violence, this isn’t the film for you, but for everyone else, what are you waiting for? Go check it out!
4 out of 5 stars
