| 24 August 2009
Inglourious Basterds is one of Tarantino's best. He kind of redefines genres by combining them with others. Following in the shoes of Kill Bill, Tarantino takes an old classic genre and combines it with a spaghetti-western feel. For Kill Bill, it was old Kung Fu movies, for Inglourious Basterds, it's classic WWII 'mission movies', like The Dirty Dozen. Combining genres may be a unique style of Tarantino, but getting actors to deliver dialogue is his bread and butter. His movies feed on suspenseful dialogue driven scenes that build up the tension, and make the movies what they are. This is both my favorite and least favorite aspect of Tarantino's movies. I always enjoy them a great deal on the first watch, but always find it hard to watch a second or third time. It's my same gripe with Kevin Smith, dialogue driven movies just don't work as well on a second watch.
When I think of Kung Fu, and WWII movies, I dont necessarily think, "dialogue driven". The reason it works so well in these movies, is because you have interactions between the hunter and their prey. Since we all know what the stakes were, there was perhaps nothing in world history as intense and as serious as the Nazi's rounding up the Jew's. Tarantino created a fantastic villain, called "The Jew Hunter". The dialogue scenes with him were the highlights of the film for me. I don't know who the actor is that plays him, but he made the movie for me. He was fantastic. The intensity of his scenes were present throughout the film, and his calmness throughout and the subtle battle of wits between the characters showed off some brilliantly written dialogue. As the dialogue got more intense, the camera zoomed in closer to the faces. A very Tarantino feel for sure.
The Basterds are a group of American born Jews that enter Nazi occupied France before the Allies do. Led by Brad Pitt, the Basterds mission is to simply 'kill Nazis!'. Each Basterd owes Pitt's character 100 Nazi scalps. A couple humurous back stories were told of certain Basterds including one 'Bear Jew', a hairy Jew that likes beating Nazis with baseball bats. The film is split up into 5 chapters, and the Basterds are surprisingly absent throughout a good portion of the film.
The film is purely fiction and shows a fantasy version of an alternate reality to history. Tarantino has a way of picking his actors and getting the most out of them. Brad Pitt may get a lot of flak, but I think he is a really great actor and he is really in some fantastic movies. You can say what you want about him, but he knows what roles to accept.
Fans of Tarantino know what to expect. The film will not disappoint.
4 out of 5 melting zombie faces.
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