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Yes this movie was fantastic

“Nein nein nein nein nein nein!”

“YES YES YES YES YES YES!”

Tarantino’s films have always had me curious because of his style and the way he writes out the story, the characters, he’s always been different from other filmmakers and keeps to his style and makes each new film interesting. So it’s not always the same old story, which I like. I’ve always had a thing for war films, especially World War Two films. Finally after months and months of waiting, I finally get to see Tarantino play with WWII, which we haven’t seen from him yet. I waited eagerly in my seat for the masterpiece to begin.

The story takes places during World War Two in Nazi-occupied France, where we have a special group of Jewish soldiers called “The Basterds” who are sent in by the United States to strike fear into the hearts of Nazis. They are lead by the Lieutenant Aldo Raine, also known as “The Apache” by the Nazis, played by Brad Pitt in both a hilarious and entertaining performance. Pitt’s character primarily derives his tactics from the Apache Indians (hence the name “The Apache”), his primary tactic is to scalp all the Nazis that his squad runs into; some of the dialogue in these scenes was just side-splitting. Their big mission is called Operation Kino, in which most of the high command of the Nazis will be attending the screening of a film created by Josef Goebbels; the Basterds are ordered to take them all down with one mighty blow in order to get the job done – but they are not the only ones looking to take a hit on the Nazi party.

In what was possibly one of the most intense openings Tarantino has ever done, we meet Nazi SS officer Colonel Hans Landa played by Christoph Waltz, who carries a phenomenal performance as the main antagonist, he was the knife that kept the audience on edge in every scene he was in. You never knew what this man was going to do, one moment he would smile and you would think all was well but it’s really a completely different situation. He may be one of the best villains ever – he made your skin crawl, made you want to run out of the room. Give that man an award, already. The whole start of the film felt like a big homage to the Spaghetti Western, which complemented the World War Two theme, specifically to say, Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. At that moment, Landa is searching for Jews, finds a family and attempts to murder them all, until one girl manages to escape him. That girl is Shosanna Dreyfus played by Melanie Laurent, who carries a very powerful performance as the tortured soul who is out to get revenge. Four years later she becomes the owner of the very same movie theater that the Nazi high command selects to view Goebbels film – and there she plans her revenge.

The whole cast of the film was one big powerful entourage, everyone shined in his own way. I was personally very surprised at Eli Roth’s performance as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, he carries attitude throughout the film, he shone defiantly as an actor in this and I must commend Tarantino’s casting choice. One of the fellow Basterds, Til Schweiger plays the intolerant, equally bad-ass Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, who despises the sight or sound of a Nazi. One particular scene I loved was the bar scene, you could see Stigilitz’s facial expressions becoming worse and worse with each passing moment. A pin could drop and everything in the room might just explode.

The pace and editing of the film was the best of all the Tarantino movies that I have seen; I have never, in any of the other films that he’s made, been so hooked from beginning to end. Sally Menke really took this up a notch and served a delicious platter of goodies with this film. I felt so engaged from beginning to end and I didn’t want it to stop, two hours and thirty nine minutes flew by and I wanted more. The cinematography played out well too, the Tarantinto-isms (as I call them) were all there, such as the three-sixty-spin-around shots. Those long takes also helped build the intensity, like the steady-cam follow-through of a line of gunpowder (forever!) leading us to… some big barrel of adrenaline ready to be unleashed. I really liked the use of music, even though it was stock music and not original it still smoothed and enriched the film like jam spread just so evenly on a peanut butter sandwich.

The violence of the film felt very controlled and effective; it wasn’t like Kill Bill’s orgy of blood with the yakuza sword fight. But with every injury you would still get that wonderful cringing feeling like if you were in the place of that person. But Tarantino still does splurge a bit towards the end of the film – I won’t spoil it, but you will see what I mean.

So the film is a wonderful gift wrapped with genius, but you might wonder, Ilya, you did nothing but worship the movie and kiss its feet, was there anything bad about it?

Hmm, one might think so, but if I were to choose anything it would be definitely length; I heard originally there was a longer cut screened at Cannes. Now I’d scalp any person to get that cut of the film, or stalk Tarantino for a copy. But I can’t otherwise put the film down, the writing was magnificent, all the characters were strong and hooked you into what would happen to them, the editing was tight and the pacing was strong. So far I have no complaints; I will see this many times again, hopefully the full cut of the film will be released on Blu-Ray and DVD so that I can dip into the complete experience of Inglourious Basterds. I would recommend seeing this opening day.

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