Steve W. Schaefer
“Inglourious Basterds”
Rated: R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality.
Note: The title is not a misprint; the misspellings are intentional, Not by me, but by the film maker.
Alternative history is when a story is told contrary to historical reality; not just a glossing over the facts, but a complete revising — changing the end. “Inglourious Basterds” does that with gusto. It is, after all, a Quentin Tarantino film. And, being Tarantino, I trust that I need not add that it is violent and bloody, with a dash of sex.
What we have is Brad Pitt with a Tennessean accent (he is from the Smoky Mountains ) playing the role of a Lt. Aldo Raine (I love that name — a play on Aldo Ray). Lt. Raine takes a band of Jewish-American soldiers behind enemy lines (in France) for the purpose of killing German soldiers (who Raine calls Nazis). He sets a minimum goal of one hundred scalps per soldier. And when I write scalp, I mean scalp. We get to see that appetizing process more than once.
There is a parallel story about a young Jewish woman named Soshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) who is the only survivor of her family murdered by SS killers. She changes her name and ends up running a movie theater in France. A German war hero is smitten by her beauty. He has just starred in a propaganda film playing himself. To impress her, he introduces her to Dr. Joseph Goebbels and arranges for the premier to be at her theater.
Both Dreyfus and Raine plan to kill all the Germans and collaborators that go to the premier but without knowing the other’s plans. A lot goes wrong. With the alternative history and much going wrong, there are a lot of surprises in the film. And this is part of the wicked fun of it.
I am sure this is a lot like a comic book by accident. The colors are vibrant, the killing appeals to the juvenile in all of us. For some reason, I kept thinking while watching this movie, that this is a Mad Magazine version of WWII.
Pitt is a hoot, sure enough, but I was blown away by the evil Col. Hans Landa played not just well but perfectly by Christoph Walz. He won Best Actor at Cannes for this film, and he deserves it. I can’t imagine that this is anything but the role of his lifetime. He is a sight to behold; a performance to enjoy.
Tarantino uses extreme violence but he also builds suspense in each scene. Very tense. And he uses almost witty silliness to balance the guts and gore, like using Mike Myers as a British Officer who sends a former film critic (also a British officer) behind enemy lines to help the “inglourious basterds.”
As I wrote before, “Inglourious Basterds” is a lot of fun; campy, Quentin Tarantino, jazzed-up B-Film fun. This is a schlock film addict’s fix. Of course, it is ultra-violent but there is so much going on that I wasn’t bored during any of the 153 minutes. Despite all the violence, I noticed how beautiful the film is. The sexy scene of Soshanna (fully dressed) smoking a cigarette in a French café while reading “The Saint in New York ” in French. The double-agent German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) trying to charm Germans and a few “Basterds” in a beer cellar. An art-deco theater about to blow up and burn down with popinjay Nazis all decked out.
Ah, if it all had been true what a “glourious” end it would have been to a bunch of “basterds.”
“Inglourious Basterds” earns four and a half bow ties out of five.
