INGLORIOUS BASTERDS - REVIEW
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Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, BJ Novak, Mike Myers, Diane Kruger
Rating: 4/5
Inglorious Basterds is the latest feature from the King of Cult Quinten Tarantio. It depicts his interpretation of the killing of the Jews in Nazi occupied France during WWII. The story is not entirely fictitious though by Tarantino's own admission there is a time in the feature when history goes one way and Tarantino so stubbornly goes his own. A departure from the truth is not such a bad thing, and the characters on screen are so richly textured and well played out that you get sucked in for the kill...literally.
Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz chart the course of this journey. Pitt is playfully brutal as Lt. Aldo Raine and Waltz is a stunningly frightening Col. Hans Landa. Tarantino didn't make an appearance in this particular work, though he has done in most of his pieces, though if you listen very carefully you will hear two familiar voices from Tarantino's brilliant body of work. The surprise inclusion here was Mike Meyers. Known most recently for his comedic Austin Powers, the choice to put him in dramatic shoes was an odd one. This reviewer expected a comedic tirade from Meyers that dropped a few gags. Fortunately this was not the case and although you sensed he and fellow cast members wanted to break into laughter as he spoke, the performance was adequate and served the stories purpose.
The violence is confronting and almost makes you look the other way at times. This is nothing new in a Tarantino piece. The soundtrack also played an integral part in the telling of the story, acting as its own character at times to breathe life or a voice into the action on screen.
The main concerns this reviewer felt, were its length and the choice to weigh the dialouge down in subtitles rather than English. Admittedly Basterds is not placed in a predominantly English speaking country so why would they use it? The audience - at least from my perspective, is not fluent in German or French in much of its Global exposure thus having to reply on reading along with the story in order to keep abreast of the situation. This always divides the audience on its reaction to events. On the one hand you are so engrossed in the text that you miss the visuals and on the other - you are intrigued enough by the action, that you forgo the story and guess what's being said.
This reviewer managed to keep a healthy grasp on dialogue and the gory stuff, enough to understand the thing though left feeling mentally exhausted by the end.
This brings me to my other qualm. The whole thing was about 20-30mins too long. Coming in about that much over 2 hours, it felt like the dialogue lumbered along a bit and there weren't enough action sequences to keep an audience switched on. The film is in 5 chapters. While each was integral to the story, some could have been trimmed a little to keep things humming along. While there are some juicey bits such as Landa's comparison of a Jew to a Rat, and a bar sequence, the gritty killings were too few for this reviewers liking and the talk was too thick.
Martin Wutke as Adolf Hitler
The closing sequence in the theatre was visually stunning and a special mention must go to Martin Wutke who's Hitler impression was a definite treat, Basterds leaves you wondering how things would be today if it played out such as Tarantino imagined. It always makes this reviewer curious as to Tarantino's future works. This is the first foray into actual events we have seen for him, and one wonder's if he has taken a liking to it.
Tarantino has outdone himself again, and he can add another cinematic scalp to his cult classic collection
Also, see an interview with Tarantino and David Stratton from At The Movies below:
rottentomatoes.com rated this 88/100 how would you rate it? Tell us below...
kind regards
glittered vision
Rat Chat
This reviewer is one of the Tarantino fans you speak of though this duty as critic does not allow me to overlook anything. Basterds would have scored a 4.5 had it not been for the criticisms made above. Basterds is clearly one of Tarantino's best however a Resevoir Dog must learn new tricks if he wants to stay ahead of the pack and this is the challange he faces
-CR.