Inglourious Basterds
The 2009 Bait & Switch award goes to this film, hands down. If you saw the trailer (that I refuse to link) and expect this to be a Tarantino action deal with Brad Pit killing ze Nazis, walk away. Brad Pitt isn’t even really a lead role in this. Instead, you get Mélanie Laurent trying to kill Hitler through hours of cloak ‘n dagger shit. Granted, Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, ‘n the rest are trying to kill Hitler also so there’s some crossroads style later, but only much later. The antagonist in the cloak & dagger stuff is super-detective Jew hunter Nazi Christoph Waltz, who appears to be very good at foiling plots.
That’s about it, really; hours of planning to kill Nazis with surprising lack of actually killing Nazis. It’s Valkyrie 2: Blood on the France as told by The Hardy Boys but the action is removed in place of laughing at Brad Pitt’s goofy accents. It’s a polished work as Quentin Tarantino is still very good at his craft. However, Tarantino is always the wild card of the industry and will always do whatever the hell he wants despite what the marketing team tricks you to expect. One of Tarantino’s strong attributes is the flow and detail of the conversations through many of his characters. Unfortunately, two-thirds of the film is subtitled in French and German, so much of that charisma is lost unless you’re trilingual or down with the foreign film scene.
Inglorious Basterds is not a bad film. Still, I honestly cannot recommend it in theater. DVD it when the opportunity arises. In the beginning, Brad Pitt says to something like seven people that all of them owe a hundred Nazi scalps. I was treated to images of four scalps. Somebody sure as hell owes me six hundred ninety-six scalps. My friend who we call “Life Coach” joined up on this and tells me he’s a pretty heavy Tarantino fan but this is the most mediocre movie he’s done. To tell you the truth, I got so bored I can’t even recall how the movie ends. Yeah it was 3am and I was fairly hammered. Either way, harsh times.
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Tags: brad pitt, inglourious basterds, Nazi, Quentin Tarantino, wwii
August 24th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Cheers for the heads up.
Reckon I’ll go see District 9 with the money I would have spent on this.
Instead of seeing this movie, I’d recommend Ponyo. Much better value and NEARLY as many Nazi scalps by the end of the movie.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I’ve got a slightly different take on it…(very slight spoilers incoming)…
I saw both District 9 and Inglourious Basterds, back to back. In the end, District 9 had far more action, but I found myself liking Basterds better…slightly.
I go into Tarantino movies these days expecting equal parts dialog/exposition and action. Basterds surprised me by being not only heavy on dialog, but also by the fact that 2/3s of that dialog was subtitled. Not a “bad” thing, mind you, just surprising; especially based on the trailers. However, one thing I’ve grown to appreciate with Tarantino is just how well-crafted his dialog is. Even going as far back as Resevoir Dogs, this guy has a hard on for words. What impressed me about the dialog and extended conversational scenes in Basterds was how he seemed to have almost lost the “Tarantino-ness” of the dialog that, while brilliant, sometimes would take me out of the movie with its overly-clever snarkiness.
I’m talking mainly about the scenes with the Jew Hunter here. That opening scene, IMO, was fucking brilliant. Intense, suspenseful, and fascinating. Then there’s the bar scene. Also marvelously done.
Now, to the action. True, there wasn’t a lot of it. This certainly wasn’t Kill Bill Vol. 1 with the Crazy 88s scene. However, for my money there was plenty of nazi-death-porn. That being said, for a movie titled “Inglourious Basterds”, it seems to me that only about 1/3 of the movie involved said Basterds. Brad Pitt’s character was brilliant, but we barely got to know the Basterds. The Bear Jew? Only one real scene showing his bad-ass-itude. After that, he faded back into the shadows, rarely seen throughout the rest of the film. To me, the lack of depth regarding the Basterds was a damn shame. And Hugo, the other guy who was supposed to be a bad ass dies rather unceremoniously in the shootout at the bar? Fuck that!
However, despite these disappointments, the climax of the film made up for it. Seeing Hitler take a machine gun to the face was fucking awesome! and I found myself wanting to cheer and applaud.
In the end, I won’t say this is his best film (Kill Bill Vol. 2 is still my favorite, I think), but I thought it was pretty damn good.
August 24th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Yeah, the dialogue in this film was awesome, while not being as over-the-top as his regular dialogue. Of course, even without the Tarantino dialogue, this was still his most self-indulgent film yet. (Particularly the line about the French loving their directors. Really, Quentin?)
Also, I was shocked at how funny it was. I’d almost venture to call it a dark comedy rather than an action flick. But all the same, There were some really tense, taut scenes that really worked, especially the opening scene.
So Bleak Harvest, I’d still wholeheartedly recommend this. Hell, go see District 9 AND this. Both totally worth the admission price. Just don’t go in expecting some of his other stuff.
August 24th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I’m seeing this film tonight, but Mitch, I highly doubt this film is as self indulgent as Death Proof.
August 24th, 2009 at 11:44 am
All Tarantino’s flicks have a healthy spoonful of self-indulgence. That’s just part of the deal when you buy the ticket. I didn’t see this one as having more or less.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
HUGE SPOILER ALERT
When I saw this movie I came out of the theater thinking the lack of action was intentional. Everyone seemed to all have a reputation of doing one thing or another. You have this “famous” SS officer nicknamed the Jew Hunter, who never really did much real detective work to live up to his name. We only really see him really hunting two people in the movie and both times he is just sort of told where,why,and how. He seemed to be more of a Great Intimidator than a great tracker or detective. You have all the Basterds Including the Bear Jew and Hugo Stiglitz who are made out (again by someone else speaking of their reputation) to be these huge hard asses. Although, most of the time they are bumbling around getting opportunity handed to them and most of the joke is how badly they are at actually performing an ambush. Lastly, you have a great war hero Fredrick Zoller who is either the push over nice guy, or at the end of the movie an asshole. He is never the stone-faced was hero everyone depicts him as. The only person who really does anything is Diane Kruger’s character. She is the only one who has the least amount of a reputation and does the most in the film to actually kick ass.
This movie reminded me a lot of one of my favorite movies Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels plot-wise. Multiple story arcs going to one big, and hugely coincidental end.
While I was going in expecting Brad Pitt and Eli Roth to be skipping about the French countryside killing Nazi’s as they go. I didn’t come out feeling cheated, I liked the idea of us not seeing much action and having to believe everyone’s opinion. My only bitch would have to be with the arc that had Zoller in it. 99% of the time we have him he’s a nice guy and I was kind of impressed by the fact Tarantino decided to make a German soldier actually…human! And, not only did he portray someone in the German Army during WWII that didn’t eat babies, but who was actually a nice guy (which out of a whole country’s worth of people there had to be some not-so-bad people only following their duties to their country.) He came out at the last minutes of him being alive as a giant douche pretending to be nice. That was kind of a disappointing part.
August 24th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Ok so after setting up shop here in Austin, I went to go see this flick, and it’s one of those movies I actually appluaded at the end. All the criticism of the film lacking action are warranted, we don’t get a retelling of “The Dity Dozen,” although I for one would have enjoyed that as well. What we do get is Tarentino at his best, dragging you into a twisted yarn of characters and exposing how connected they truly are.
Christoph Walze’s portrayal of the hated “Jew Hunter was simply masterful, you can’t help but loath this guy, and you hope he gets what he deserves in the end. Brad Pitt also shines in his role of Aldo, and I do wish he had more screentime. However the 45 minutes he has on screen he owns. The rest of the Basterds has very little to do in this film, and in a way are an afterthought. I would have liked more back story on them, but that would have been another hour.
I disagree with the Zollar character being a douche in the end, he was always one. He never took no for an answer and was completely obsessed with his own stardom, one he never asked for. The end scene with him wasn’t such a suprise, he was just a weak man who wanted to get laid that’s all.
But for me, the BEST part of this film (aside freom the dialogue, which is amazing) is the cinematography. Tarentino is a master with the camera. From the extreme close-ups of cream, the the skillful and even creative use of a dolly, the visuals are simply a treat. The end scenes and the chaos therin are punctuated with the angre Basterds and their machine guns. It was both beautiful and catharthic at the same time.
It’s nice to have thsi movie and District 9 come out at the end of a summer of mostly trash. we can think in one, and get treated to a master storyteller in another. I’m with Mitch, go see BOTH!
August 25th, 2009 at 2:18 am
I just got back, and my brother and I both loved it. I agree with most of what you guys have said so far, Walze is immaculate, the dialogue was awesome, and chapter 5 was some of the most fun I’ve had watching a movie in a long time.
My brother and I came up with a good rule on the way home: In our home, there are no longer Chuck Norris facts, only Hugo Stiglitz facts. Example: Hugo Stiglitz has a cat named Chuck Norris, because Chuck Norris is a pussy.