Review of Inglourious Basterds (2009) by Byron B — 01 Oct 2016

There is an Italian film from the late '70s with Fred Williamson titled The Inglorious Bastards, which is evidently about a sort of wild bunch killing Nazis in France 1944. Tarantino bought the rights to that film so he could borrow the basic set-up for this WWII genre pic, but the plot has very little in common with the older movie.

Thrilling and suspenseful. I love how the multiple story threads are woven together. The Jewish American soldiers form a wild bunch to go kill Nazis. A French Jewish woman is hiding with an assumed identity and working at a cinema.

And a cold calculating Colonel is out to catch them all. Christoph Waltz deserved the supporting actor Oscar for Colonel Hans Landa. Mélanie Laurent as the French resistance cinema operator is also impressive.

In fact, Tarantino pulled together one of his most impressive international ensemble casts for this new slant on a well established genre.