Review of Inglourious Basterds (2009) by Wendy H — 12 Oct 2016

While it is thoroughly entertaining, I do not necessarily believe that Inglorious Basterds is a good movie.

I did enjoy the abundance of dialogue, because I believe it helped propel the plot forward at a nice pace. What I did not like was the blase perspective the movie took on the Holocaust. Even the entire construction of the german detective troubled me. Tarantine made him too funny, too witty, and too likeable. While I do understand this was a mockumentary of sorts, it made me feel guilty to sit there and laugh during some scenes.

As far as arch, I could see none of no character whatsoever in the film. All the characters ended as they began, making them somewhat superficial and shallow. I did recognize some false foreshadowing with the german war hero actor. When he left the theater it almost seemed as if he had a shred of remorse for killing all those people, but any thread of hope that he was going to arc in any way was destroyed once he forced his way into the theater's projection room.

I do commend the integration of the various languages throughout the film, as it in no way detracted from the pace of the plot. In fact, in many cases I had to rewind the movie to re-read captions due to the face paced nature of the dialogue.

Overall, while I can appreciate it cinematic elements, this movie made me feel guilty for enjoying it.