The last line of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has a Southern hick-accented Brad Pitt -- with the utmost confidence and swagger -- exclaiming: “This may be my masterpiece.” He makes this brag staring directly at the audience. The screen goes black. It pauses. Then the now-legendary orange-font credit rolls; “Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino.”
Wow. Only the man who made “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs” – two of the most defining movies of the 1990s – could have the nerve to end a film like
that. And, yet, “Basterds” (the misspelling is on purpose) goes one further: **SPOILERS AHEAD** It literally re-creates history. In this World War II film, not only are there no gun battles or tanks or dogfights, but the entire Third Reich is slaughtered, blown up, and set on fire by the film’s end. By Jewish soldiers. Dig this fellow History Channel junkies: A young Jewish-American soldier (played by Eli Roth, director of several horror films) literally takes a machine gun to Hitler’s face, and blows that toothbrush mustache to bloody, chunky bits. In up-close gory detail. This is a fantasy film, by Yahweh. (Roth has said as much in interviews, saying countless Jewish boys have wished they could personally kill the Fuhrer.) When you enter Tarantino’s world, he is God. And the projectionist.
Oh, and David Bowie is on the soundtrack. Of a World War II film. Again, wow.
Despite all this, “Basterds isn’t quite Tarantino’s masterpiece. But damn close. It’s climax has a few creaky spots as we get a few dozen repeated shots of 300-plus Nazis laughing and cheering at a propaganda sniper film made by Joseph Goebbels. (He dies, too. The way he should have.) Move on, already. As well, there’s not much depth here. Tarantino progressed in the second “Kill Bill” film with some emotional baggage that ruled over the groovy soundtrack, visuals and blood. This is brownie-deep entertainment. (I love brownies. Eating one right now, in fact. I may have two.) Lastly, Mike “Austin Powers” Myers has a WTF cameo that is laughable, but not in a good way.
Still, “Basterds” is pure Tarantino adrenaline and wonderful word play. I loved it. It’s also more seeped in Italian and European film genres then the typical American World War II action film, like say “The Dirty Dozen” – which this film directly pays homage. And for that, I also love it. The credits begin “Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France…”, and sets off on some Sergio Leone (“Once Upon a Time in the West”) cues of enemy soldiers slowly coming up a dirt road, long but fascinating conversations, side quests that dead end, and furious bursts of shocking violence. The music of the great Ennio Morricone is sprinkled throughout to further the effect of its Spaghetti Western origins. This really is a foreign film, with the French, German and Italian languages taking up most of the 150-minute running time.
Pitt, billed as the lead, is not the film's focus. That crown, arguably, belongs to Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa, an uber-suave and giddy Nazi who’s Sherlock Holmes as re-imagined by Satan. Landa makes drinking a glass of milk as evil as anything seen on screen in years. Man deserves an Oscar. He owns this film. Landa (and Waltz) speaks four languages fluently, a gift which will thrash the final mission of our titular heroes.
“Basterds” opens with a quiet scene that has Landa visiting a French dairy farmer, and after an insanely long interrogation, he fingers the man for harboring a Jewish family. The secreted family is killed where they hide, except for the daughter (Melanie Laurent), who escapes in a frantic, blood-soaked mess. She runs off screaming in a scene that brings to mind Wyeth by way of Dante’s Inferno. Damn straight she’ll turn up again. We then get introduced to the Basterds, a group of American and German Jews in occupied France who drill their way through the Third Reich during a three-year tour. Pitt is Aldo Raine, the lead Basterd and Southern American hick who demands 100 “Nah-zee” scalps from his motley team. Roth plays the “Bear Jew,” a baseball-bat wielding Ted Williams fan. All these players, and Waltz will meet at film’s end. Along with a spastic Hitler that would make Mel Brooks proud.
“Basterds” is a film of dialogue. Tarantino is a jackpot writer. In a scene that kills off several off several main players, he has Americans, Brits, and Germans in a basement bar playing “Guess Who?” over drinks. Tarantino draws the scene waaaay out like taffy, until it becomes unbearable. The audience is waiting for something, anything, to happen as “King Kong” and good Scotch is discussed. At just the point where the scene grows almost tedious, guns are drawn, and a blink and you miss it bloodbath ensues. I want to watch the film again just to see how Tarantino manages to pull off these hat tricks of suspense, film worship, and comedy.
And hands down this is Tarantino’s funniest film, despite the backdrop of World War II and the Holocaust. In a highlight scene of suspense and comedy, Landa meets up with Raine, two Basterds, and a German actress/spy (Diane Kruger) at a cinema owned by none other than Laurent’s vengeance-seeking runaway. Attempting to pass as Italian filmmakers, our heroes’ accent mangling sends Landa – and the also audience – into uncontrollable laughter. Landa keeps asking the men to repeat everything they say three, four times. “Graht-zeee,” Pitt says, sucking in his lower lip. Unaware he’s been busted.
On top of all the capital “T” Tarantino moments, the keen kick-ass joy of “Basterds” is its re-writing of history. This is the first World War II film that I have ever seen where I did not
know the ending. This is thrilling, nasty, and often funny ride into an unknown past that should have been. Like this year's "Star Trek." Hitler popped himself in an underground bunker? How dull. Why not shot the fucker down. The last scene is gory as hell, and hilarious.
“Inglourious Basterds” won’t recreate cinema the way “Pulp Fiction” did in 1994. It’s not
that great. But it’s one of 2009’s best films, for sure. I hate that Tarantino – known for creating strong female characters - kills off his leading ladies in gruesome detail. But he worships these women nonetheless. Against a churning, writhing snake’s head of deathly smoke, Laurent’s dead cinema owner screams from the grave to the dying Third Reich that she is the face of Jewish anger and vengeance. Pretty damn glorious to me.
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