Right review time on this mother blogger, which is yet another movie, this time I've gone for another Quentin Tarantino flick, Inglorious Basterds, which I watched quite recently at the weekend.
So so so so, to start with the inevitable plot analysis, the film begins during the Second World War in 1941, in a German occupied France, where an SS officer, Colonel Hans Landa (Christophe Waltz) visits a local dairy farmer Perrier Lapidite (Denis Menochet) to enquire about a local jewish family who are missing in the area. While Landa initially puts Lapitide at ease, he toys with him and gets him to admit that he is in fact hiding the Jewish family underneath his floorboards, after which Landa has his soldiers kill the family, but one of them escapes, a teenage girl Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), which Landa let's go. Three years later, an American Lieutenant, Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) recruits 8 Jewish American soldiers to go on a mission into Germany to hunt down the Nazis. Aldo being part Indian, has the nickname Aldo the Apache, and demands that each Nazi soldier his men kill, that they take their scalps for him, and the team become known as the Basterds. As the Basterds become more notorious within Germany, Hitler (Martin Wuttke) interviews a German soldier, who was a sole survivor of one of the basterds attacks, and he reveals that he has had a swastika sign carved into his forehead, which Aldo did himself, to send a message to the Nazis.
Meanwhile Shosanna, in the summer of 1944, by now has re-established herself in Paris, where show now runs a Cinema left by her aunt and uncle. Shosanna now goes under the psuedonum of Emanuelle Mimieux to conceal her real identity, and she is soon approached by a German soldier, Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) who tries to charm her with his exploits as a sniper, who successfully defended his position in a belltower over three days, and has become a national hero as a result. Shosanna however is far from impressed with Zoller and leaves, but he soon persues her and sends a soldier escort to pick her up and take her to a meeting at a hotel with none other than Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) who has made a Nazi propaganda film, starring Zoller in his exploits at the belltower. Zoller suggests to Goebbels that his film "Nations Pride", be permiered at Shosanna's cinema, Goebbels is however initially reluctant to accept, but agrees. However at the meeting Shosanna meets Landa (who fully realises who she is), who is handling the security for the event, who proceeds to toy with her and interrogate her in a playful way before letting her go. Shosanna soon plans to get revenge for her family, by using her stock of high flammable nitrate film prints to burn the cinema down at the night of the premiere.
While this is going on, another subplot sees a British soldier, Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) who is recruited for a top secret mission named "Operation Kino", in which he is set to rendevous with two of the Basterds team, and the famous German film star Bridget Von Hammersmark at a tavern on the French border. However the tavern has a group of drunken German soldiers there, as well as a Gestapo officer, Major Hellstrom (August Diehl) and suspicion is aroused when a drunken German soldier enquires why Bridget is there, and Hicox chastises the soldier for interrupting, and his indistinct German accent raises the suspicions of Hellstrom. And soon enough Hicox gives himself away (by signalling the British for three with his hands, and not the German way) which leads to a gunfight, with everyone being killed except the drunk soldier, Wilhelm, who tries to negotiate with Aldo who is up top with the rest of his men, and Bridget who then kills the soldier, in order to keep her involvement a secret. Bridget than reveals to Aldo that while the meeting was botched, that Hitler will attend the premiere. Aldo then decides to attend the premiere as Bridget's escort, along with two of his team, Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Omar (Omar Doom), posing as Italians. However in the meantime, at the scene of the tavern, Landa finds a napkin autographed by Bridget and one of her shoes, which placed her there, and there at the prermiere he confronts her, and Aldo and his men, which soon leads to chaos.
Its hard to pick a favourite Quention Tarantino film for me, but I would have to say while Inglorious Basterds isn't it, its still a thoroughly entertaining flick, and it has a tremendous amount going for it. I really also like Tarantino's decision to film the French and German actors, speaking their dialogue in their native languages, as it helps to lend a bit more authenticity to the proceedings. And while the film is far from a history lesson, and is essentially just alot of farcical bumpkum, with Tarantino what you get will always be worth watching (well maybe with the exception of Death Proof).
The film also has some excellent performances in it, starting with Brad Pitt as the Aldo, he plays his part with an almost macho quality, and as a man who takes pride in his work, he also get's some of the best dialogue in the film. As one example, my fav has to be "Nazis aint got any humanity, they are the foot soldiers of a jew-hating mass murdering maniac and they need to be destroyed!", and I also can't forget the hilarious moment where he attends the premiere of the film, posing as an Italian film maker and he says to Landa in his own unmistakable American accent "Arrvederci!". Diane Kruger is also great as Bridget Von Hammersmark, the German film star and under cover agent for the British army. Michael Fassbender is similarly great as Lt Hicox, the British soldier, who is also a film critic in his civiliian life, and he plays his part cool, with his unusual German accent, and his traditionally British one. Melanie Laurent is also very good too as Shosanna, and she appears somewhat cool headed on the surface but deep down you know she is still distraught at the death of her family at the hands of the Landa's men, and she is hellbent on revenge.
However the best performance in the film belongs to Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa, the superficially charming SS officer, nicknamed the "Jew hunter" who plays Landa as a sadistic, cunning and manipulative bastard, who takes great pleasure in his work and toying with his victims. Waltz has quite a few highlights in the film, but the one that stands out is of course the opening scene where he playfully interrogates the dairy milk farmer, before he gets the farmer to confess that he is concealing the Jewish family he is seeking out (I also enjoyed watching him smoke his ridiculously big pipe in that scene!).
Scene wise there are plenty of highlights in the film as well, such as the aforementioned opening scene, and the tensely staged scene with the Basterds, Hicox and Von Hammersmark meeting in the tavern, where things quickly go badly wrong. The introduction of the Basterds with Aldo addressing them is also an amusing scene where he tells them "Each one of you will give me 100 nazi scalps! And I want my scalps! Taken from the heads of 100 dead Nazis! Or you will die tryin!". And finally the scene at the end at the Goebbels premiere of Nations Pride, his Nazi propoganda film, where the Basterds plan to take out Hitler, while Shosanna also sets the wheels in motion to burn her cinema down with Hitler and his top men in it.
However on a slightly critical note, there are one or two moments in the film that probably leave a slightly bad taste in your mouth, which can sometimes be the case in Tarantino's films, and such an example is when Hammersmark kills the young German soldier, Wilhelm in the tarven, who had become a new father. Hammersmark pleads with Wilhelm to put the gun down and think of his son, only to then gun him down afterwards. You can see why she did it, as she wanted her identity as a spy to be kept secret, so the best way was to kill him, but the scene does leave a nasty after impression. You could also argue at times that Tarantino makes one or two hasty decisions in presenting how the Nazis are portrayed, especially in the lack of security on the foyer of Shosanna's cinema, as there appears a lack of security when surely security would be the most important things in this case. And wouldn't they think to check every inch of the cinema, so that they know it is safe for the Fuhrer to attend, yet they let its owner leave a big pile of flammable film prints behind the screen. They are not exactly being thorough are they???
Regardless of that though, Inglorious Basterds is highly enjoyable, and it also features a fine soundtrack, where again Tarantino expertly chooses some great music, one of which that stands out really well is his choice of the David Bowie song "Putting out fires with gasoline" when Shosanna prepares herself for the premiere. Tarantino chooses some old classic pieces of music composed by Ennio Morricone, which also fit in really well with the tone of the film, and Tarantino intially wanted to Morricone to score the film, who was unavailable at the time.
So that's it for my Inglorious Basterds analysis, its a really enjoyable film, and while it might not be Tarantino's best, it still stands up well next to his other movies, and is well worth watching.
So on that note, arrivederci!
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