Review of Inglourious Basterds (2009) by Sami M — 08 Oct 2017

Sami Mati A Glorious review.

Film: Inglourious Basterds.

Inglourious Basterds catches your attention right from the beginning just from its title and unique spelling, adding a Tarantino touch to make it stand out from other war films. However, this isn't your typical war film, rather a movie that has literally every genre, ranging from drama and sadness from one scene to humor and action to the next. Inglourious Basterds is set in World War 2 in Nazi-occupied France. The movie right away shies from history and creates their own fictional storyline. The film also doesn't take the traditional "one-story" plot, rather it contains several different storylines with the characters coming from different backgrounds but possessing similar goals. The main characters are an American soldier, A Nazi, and a Jewish girl. They all cross roads to meet the same desirable goal at the end, though they get to their destination in different ways. Brad Pitt stars as the soldier, a stereotypical loud-mouth yank who does before he thinks, with Christoph Waltz starring as the Nazi detective, who is very calculative and has a very large eye for detail. Perhaps the most important character is Shoshanna, a Jewish girl who lives in France with falsified documents after witnessing the massacre of her family. Her hate for the Nazis grow deeper as the years pass by, but she has no choice but to blend in. Tarantino excels in putting all of these vastly complicated and unique characters together to maintain a plot that in a way fits all of their natures, with no main character getting the spotlight for too long. Since the film is well over two hours long, it is divided into five chapters. Each chapter focuses on a specific event or issue, which helps the viewer not get lost in the plot. I enjoyed that English was only one of the languages spoken in the film, with German, French, and even Italian being included into the mix. This seeks the viewer further into the World War two setting. The film starts off quite slow in the beginning, with more dialogue than action, but the aftermath of the 2nd chapter is what truly builds up the tension and makes this film memorable. I also enjoyed that the film didn't really depict anyone as the "good guy", showing how the protagonists were also like the antagonists in an ironic twist. The antagonist also doesn't share the traditional "bad guy" vibe we see from almost every other movie. Inglourious Basterds is like nothing I've ever seen before. It would seem realistic to every film viewer, including myself, that it's impossible to have a movie that has romance, thrills, dialogue, comedy, tragedy, and action packed into a two hour plot, while also breaking away from a traditional storyline and shed new views on the characters each time you watch it. Inglourious Basterds defies all of these odds to become one of Tarantino's masterpieces only next to Pulp Fiction. The film deserves a "fresh" review with a fair rating of 8.5/10. I would have rated it higher if the film's speed wasn't quite slow in the first half, but it succeeds in sending its message to the viewers. It's a film with stars in its cast, but the actors and actresses that nobody's quite familiar with become just as memorable with their astounding performances.