2009 | Dir. Quentin Tarantino | 153 Minutes
"In the pages of history, every once in a while fate reaches out and extends its hand. What shall the history books read?"
Lieutenant Aldo Raine assembles a guerrilla squad of Jewish-American soldiers to conduct a campaign of terror and humiliation against Hitler's Nazis. Meanwhile, a celebrated German sniper is chosen by Goebbels to be the subject of a propaganda film set to premiere in occupied Paris with the Nazi High Command in attendance. Simultaneous plots targeting the premiere are hatched by a vengeful Jewish refugee, and a German defector collaborating with the British and Raine's men.
Inglourious Basterds is a war film unlike any other, utilizing all of writer/director Quentin Tarantino's creative tendencies and quirks in unexpected ways. Told in five distinct chapters that alternate between dark humor and engrossing drama, the vignettes featuring the Basterds let loose with the stylized violence and high-tension stand-offs one would expect from a Tarantino picture, while the ones that center on the heroine Shosanna Dreyfus fully utilize the less recognized aspects of the auteur's skill set as he masterfully and patiently builds dramatic suspense with substantial stakes. An air of grim levity permeates the sequence that introduces the Basterds, while the opening chapter that introduces primary antagonist Hans Landa and Shosanna is a suffocating edge-of-your-seat affair.
The central conceit of Inglourious Basterds is the notion that cinema carries the power to change the course of history. As the Nazis hope to rally their forces with a sensationalized cinematic account of their star soldier, Shosanna makes history with her own film. The picture brilliantly subverts exceptions, as Hitler attends the screening in Paris, and the plan to slaughter Nazi leadership along with the dictator actually succeeds spectacularly, literally changing history as we know it. The surprise alternate reality of the film presents a fantastic statement in that the event decisively ending the war occurs at the cinema, chiefly perpetrated by an artist, her face projected on a burning movie screen and subsequently on the smoke billowing from her weaponized highly flammable nitrate film collection. The brutal brand of justice doled out by the Basterds is just icing on the proverbial cake.
French actress Mélanie Laurent is magnetic as Shosanna, projecting both trepidation and wrath with palpable conviction. Equal parts charming and terrifying, Christoph Waltz's performance as Hans Landa indisputably places the villain alongside the most memorable antagonists ever committed to film. Similarly, Daniel Brühl's Fredrick Zoller is so deceptively pleasant that it can be easy to dismiss him until he until he proves to be a real threat during the closing act. As Lieutenant Raine, Brad Pitt is a real hoot, really chewing on that hillbilly accent. The cast also features Michael Fassbender doing some his best work as British Royal Marine Lieutenant Archie Hicox, Diane Kruger as German movie star prone to misfortune Bridget von Hammersmark, Til Schweiger as rage monster Hugo Stiglitz, horror director Eli Roth as rambunctious "Bear Jew" Donny Donowitz, and a barely-recognizable Mike Myers as Hicox's superior officer Ed Fenech.
Playing against expectations in the very best way, Inglourious Basterds weaves several captivating narratives together to form a unique war film with an unbelievable finale that's both shocking and exhilarating. Beyond the outrageous exploits of the picture's titular heroes, the film is about weaponizing art to defeat fascism and perhaps change history. It is a powerful statement, if fanciful and somewhat on-the-nose, and it is undeniably thrilling.
THE STORY BEHIND THE TITLE
The title was inspired by Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 World War II action film Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato (That Damned Armored Train), re-titled The Inglorious Bastards for US distribution which in turn is a direct translation of the original working title for the movie: Bastardi Senza Gloria. According to Tarantino, the odd spelling of this film's title is attributed to "Quentin Tarantino spelling."
QUENTIN TARANTINO AS...
- A scalped Nazi
- An American soldier in Nation's Pride
RED APPLE CIGARETTES
- Private First Class Hirschberg's brand of choice
FOOT STUFF
- Landa recovers von Hammersmark's designer shoe from the basement tavern and itimidates her into placing her foot on his lap, slowly slipping the shoe onto her foot to reveal his discovery of her defection
CASTRATION WITH A BANG
- During the Mexican standoff in the basement tavern, Gestapo Major Dieter Hellstrom aims his pistol at Hicox's crotch, Hicox and Sigletz aim their guns at Hellstrom's, and all three open fire and parish in the ensuing shootout
NOTABLE NEEDLE DROP
- David Bowie's theme song written by Giorgio Moroder from Paul Schrader's 1982 erotic thriller Cat People is a wonderfully anachronistic choice for the opening moments of the film's final chapter as Shosanna prepares for war, its refrain of "putting out the fire with gasoline" amusing blunt considering what she's about to do
FRAGMENTS
- Tarantino spent a decade writing the screenplay for the film
- The Universal Pictures studio logo that opens the film is a throwback to the design that was used from 1963 to 1990
- Frequent Tarantino collaborator Samuel L. Jackson narrates Hugo Stiglitz's character introduction and the expository montage about nitrate film
- Lieutenant Raine's phony alias Enzo Gorlomi is a mangled pronunciation of The Inglorious Bastards director Enzo G. Castellari's birth name, while Donowitz's alias is Antonio Margheriti after a prolific Italian exploitation film director
- Eli Roth directed the film within the film Nation's Pride
- Bo Svenson, the star of Castellari's The Inglorious Bastards, makes a cameo appearance in this film as an American Colonel in Nation's Pride, while Castellari himself cameos as a Nazi General in the burning theater
007 CONNECTIONS
- Christoph Waltz (Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Spectre and No Time To Die)
- Léa Seydoux (Madeleine Swan in Spectre and No Time To Die)
MCU CONNECTIONS
- Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and The Marvels)
- Daniel Brühl (Helmut Zemo in Captain America: Civil War)
