Review: Inglourious Basterds

Alternate take on WWII has three major story strands that ultimately come together: Melanie Laurent is Shoshanna, a Jew who has a girl fled the capture of cordial but thoroughly evil SS Colonel Landa (an Oscar-winning Christoph Waltz), the so-called ‘Jew Hunter’, who murders the rest of her family. We catch up with her years later in Paris, France where she is running a movie theatre under a different name. She is courted by Nazi war hero and rising Nazi propaganda movie star Daniel Bruhl, whose new movie “Nation’s Pride” (an obvious reference to the controversial Leni Riefenstahl propaganda flick “Triumph of the Will”). Meanwhile, we meet Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the swaggering, good ‘ol boy leader of the title band of Jewish soldiers on a mission to scalp and/or kill Nazis. Diane Kruger plays a German actress who is really a double agent working for the British in a plot to assassinate Hitler (Martin Wuttke), which will involve both Shoshanna and the Basterds. Mike Myers plays a British General in a scene also featuring British PM Winston Churchill, as portrayed by Australia’s own Rod Taylor. Sylvester Groth plays Goebbels, who sees himself as something of a film producer. ‘Torture Porn’ guy Eli Roth plays one of the Basterds, nicknamed the Bear Jew, whose baseball bat swing you do not want to be on the receiving end of. Til Schweiger plays a psycho German now in league with the Basterds. Michael Fassbender turns up as Lt. Archie Hickox, a multi-lingual British soldier integral to the assassination plot.

This 2009 Quentin Tarantino war action/drama (and irreverent, revisionist take on WWII) isn’t as great as “Django Unchained” or his “Kill Bill” films, but there are moments of greatness here, and a surprising amount of maturity too (though we’re still talking about some decidedly irreverent, Cinephile sensibilities at work here, not to mention a grisly scalping or two). My biggest complaint would be that despite the title (deliberately misspelt to pay homage to a same-titled 1978 Enzo G. Castellari Italian war-actioner with Fred Williamson, Sir Ian Bannen and Bo Svenson), the Basterds are barely in the film, and in fact, are both superfluous and not very interesting. The trailers and plot synopsis definitely gave off a “Dirty Dozen”, ‘Guy movie’ action flick vibe that simply isn’t true of the finished product. I had to try and alleviate my expectations and adjust to what the film was really about, and once I did that, I enjoyed myself. It’s not the film that it was rumoured to be, and it’s a pretty ambitious film for Tarantino, but it’s still a good film. Yet, given that title, it’s amazing how unnecessary the ‘Basterds’ actually are to the film’s plot, and I think this does prevent the film from being better than it is. Which is ironic given that if the film were more of a “Dirty Dozen” homage, it would likely be more of a B-movie, but at least it would have a clearer and stronger narrative. As is, the Basterds really fight for screen time, not just with each other, but with the rest of the characters, as their scenes seem to be more of a side-story for most of the length. Pitt’s overly forced, far too jocular performance (Dude ain’t no Lee Marvin! Did the great Lee Marvin or Richard Burton ever crack a smile?) and phony accent is also a bit of a problem (He refers to Nazis as ‘Nat-sees’ with his lame Southern fried accent). He does, however, imitate Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” very amusingly (or amusingly poorly), at one point, in a scene where his character boasts being the best Italian-speaker of the Basterds. He’s anything but! I also enjoyed the in-joke concerning his character’s name, Aldo Raine clearly being an homage to B-grade tough guy (and real-life former Navy frogman) Aldo Ray, who appeared in several war movies.

Whilst the Cinephile in-jokes and homages aren’t as in-your-face or as integral to the film as in say the “Kill Bill” films (which many people don’t like, but it’s their loss), they are indeed there from the opening moments. And what an opening this film has! We open with the Universal Pictures logo circa the 1960s, and Tarantino follows this up with a very Peckinpah-esque (“The Wild Bunch”) title design. Even better, the film’s first chapter (Tarantino adopts his patented non-chronological narrative to its best effect to date) goes by the Leone-esque title ‘Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France’. What follows this is a masterfully-directed, scripted, and acted sequence that suggests how a Leone Western would look if it were in fact a war film and relied on stylised, tension-building dialogue scenes rather than stylishly-staged, tension-building action scenes. It’s without question the best single scene in any Tarantino film since that Christopher Walken monologue in the otherwise overrated “Pulp Fiction”. After the letdown of “Death Proof”, Tarantino got his mojo back here, because unlike that film, the dialogue is actually interesting. There’s lots of little typical QT touches throughout, though like I said, not as many direct film references as in the “Kill Bill” films (My favourite? A character named ‘Emmanuelle’. A character named Antonio Margheriti was also choice). For instance, the music, as is always the case with Tarantino, is a Cinephile’s wet dream. You’ve got spaghetti western music, blaxploitation music, and rat-tat-tat war movie music, ala “The Dirty Dozen”. Also, Samuel L. Jackson narrates the chapter devoted to Schweiger’s character, and it’s set to a very 70s score (the Jim Brown blaxploitation flick “Slaughter” to be exact) and features typically funkadelic title design. I also nearly applauded Tarantino for refusing to translate ‘Oui’ and ‘Adieu’ for scenes in French with English subtitles. It’s corny and pretentious, and bloody funny, if you ask me. Meanwhile, who else but Tarantino would give us a scene where a supposed young war hero is trying to woo a young lady, with the joke being that he’s a NAZI war ‘hero’! Very clever and ironic. Not all of Tarantino’s little touches work. For instance, a faux-British Mike Myers stands out for all the wrong reasons as a British General. It’s stunt casting and foolish stunt casting at that, Myers is terribly unconvincing. Thankfully, Myers only has the one scene, and it’s shared with Aussie veteran Rod Taylor, who’s always a delight to see (he’s always been underrated in my opinion), here cast as Churchill. The ironic stunt casting of “Hostel” director Eli Roth works a bit better, but outside of film buffs and gore-hounds, how many people even know what Roth looks like?

Even though the film isn’t the gung-ho war actioner we were lead to believe, what it is, is a cinephile’s revisionist spin on WWII and Nazi Germany. That is to say, QT has made it so that he can change the ending, and more importantly, he can bring everything back to the world of cinema. Ultimately, like a lot of QT movies (if not all of them), the film is about cinema, and his love for it, but for once, it’s cinephilic in story just as much as it is in style, showing that Tarantino might just have grown up...a little (He matured even more with “Django”). The idea of tearing down the Nazi regime via highly flammable nitrate film stock (therefore turning a movie theatre into something akin to, well, what the majority of Holocaust victims were met with at the end), is a bold, darkly hilarious bit of genius, a bravura idea in my view. With the Basterds we essentially have a bunch of Jewish characters (and a former Nazi, played by Schweiger) as the anti-hero heroes inflicting almighty vengeance on the dreaded Nazi bad guys, like some kind of bizarro (if belated) Jewish empowerment version of “The Dirty Dozen”. Add to this the characters played by Kruger (a German actress who helps the Basterds), Laurent (a theatre owner), Groth (Goebbels as tyrannical Film Producer), Fassbender (as a multi-lingual British soldier and former film critic), and Bruhl (pretty much the Nazi Audie Murphy), and you’ve got a film that is more about cinema than it is about WWII, really. One could even argue that the Myers character is inspired by the absurdist “Dr. Strangelove”, but it’s ineffectual nonetheless. I must say, with all this being said, and with the inclusion of a character named Emmanuelle, it’s a surprise that Tarantino didn’t find time for a character named Ilsa, perhaps the warden of a women’s prison or some such. In Tarantino’s alternate universe take (sure to be seen as in bad taste by some), cinema is integral to the hopeful downfall of Nazism. Who else would come up with this fantastically fantastical idea? And who else could make it work without getting too insensitive and offensive in regards to the very real history Tarantino is playfully toying around with? For those who dismiss the film as offensive on historical/realism grounds, I really think QT gives you ample evidence early on that this film is set in an alternate reality (remember that chapter title I praised?), and you either go with it and have fun, or consider it a cleverly shameless way for QT to rewrite history without risking offending anyone. Personally, I can maybe see the latter, but disagree with it, and if you’re going to have that attitude going in, why bother seeing the film anyway?

Pitt’s disappointing work aside, the performances are pretty terrific. Christoph Waltz pretty much walks off with the whole film as the intelligent, intuitive, cultured, but thoroughly evil Nazi, Col. Landa. Contrast his magnetic, charming, and terrifying portrayal with the one of Hitler in the film, which is your typical screaming, fist-thumping ‘Movie Hitler’ (not a criticism, just an observation). Landa’s a real character, and a fascinatingly layered one. The other major standout for me was French actress Laurent as Shoshanna, one of the intended Jewish victims of Waltz’s visit in the opening, who flees his clutches to open up a cinema in Paris where she is courted by Nazi soldier and film hero Bruhl. Not only is she beautiful to look at, but her performance is easily the most affecting, and her heroic character the most resonant, aside from Waltz. Laurent enjoys the company of Pam Grier and Uma Thurman (and to a lesser extent Zoe Bell from “Death Proof”) in heroic Tarantino women, but her efforts are more dramatically affecting and the heroics somewhat covert, at the end of the day. Although underused, Kruger gives a surprisingly solid performance as the actress and double agent integral to the mission. At the very least she lacks the forced nature of Pitt’s campy schtick, and whilst not on screen for long, is light years ahead of any of her previous work that I’ve seen. Schweiger is pitch-perfect as a psychotic German batting for the other team.

This is a good film with great moments and performances, rather than an overall great film. But for a Tarantino film, I think it’s easily one of his best, from a non-fan perspective. Screenplay by the director, QT certainly gives us a unique, dialogue-driven action flick (albeit a little too drama-oriented to be classified solely as an action film, perhaps).

Rating: B