Quentin Tarantino directs this ensemble action drama set in Europe during World War Two. In the first of two converging storylines, Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a young Jewish woman in occupied France, seeks to avenge the death of her parents by the Nazis after narrowly escaping execution herself and fleeing to Paris. There she creates a new identity for herself as the owner and manager of a cinema. Meanwhile, a group of Jewish American soldiers known as 'The Basterds', led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), joins forces with German actress and undercover agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. The Basterds cross paths with Shosanna when her cinema, which has been commandeered by the Nazis for the screening of their latest propaganda film, becomes the target for their next attack. However, unbeknown to them, Shosanna has devised a revenge plan of her own. Christoph Waltz gained the Best Supporting Actor Awards at both the 2010 BAFTAs and Academy Awards for his portrayal of the devious Colonel Hans Landa.
| Starring: |
Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Bruhl, Eli Roth, Samm Levine, B.J. Novak, Til Schweiger, Mike Myers, Cloris Leachman, Julie Dreyfus, Michael Fassbender, Maggie Cheung, Paul Rust, Rod Taylor |
| Director: |
Quentin Tarantino |
| Languages: |
English |
| Distributor: |
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MyMovies
Rarely does a film come along whose tone can be so readily guessed by its title alone but "Inglourious Basterds" ...
Rarely does a film come along whose tone can be so readily guessed by its title alone but "Inglourious Basterds" pulls off the job splendidly. Then consider the fact that Cinematic Savant Quentin Tarantino is the man behind the wheel of this one, taking his troops into a whirly-gig/fairy tale version of Nazi Occupied France and you should either be running for the hills or rejoicing...or both. "Basterds", as its playful title would suggest, is probably Tarantino's most flawed masterpiece to date. It's one part revengers tale, one quota pitch-black comedy with a suffocating layer of trademark Tarantino banter. One thing's for sure though. All bets are off. In his Occupied France you're just as likely to be chewing on hot lead than you are to be exchanging witticisms about War-era German filmmakers - that is of course if you're not chilling to a bit of impromptu Bowie. Brad Pitt, who is excellent here, plays Lt. Aldo Raine - the poster boy for nihilist tendencies and general bloodletting. He's in charge of the titular team, a rag tag bunch of Jews whose sole mission it is to scalp as many Nazis as they can. But the carnage they reap is just the backdrop to a pair of keener stories; one being Melanie Laurent's runaway Jew, Shosanna, and her new life as the owner of Paris' most sought after cinema. Hot on her trail though is the self proclaimed Jew Hunter Col. Hans Landa (the devilishly good Christoph Waltz). Meanwhile the stunning, former silver screen belle, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is helping the Brits, led by Michael Fassbender, in an audacious assassination attempt of all the higher-ranking Nazi officers. Of course, as in any Tarantino venture, these stories collide in a celebration of bullets and profanity in the best possible way. It's a disjointed effort though, one punctuated with some terrifically tense scenes and some of Tarantino's best work. However, the cinematic wunderkind is on overdrive here and he affords every one of his characters their moment in the sun to the detriment of "Basterds" and its run time (it runs at a not-so-glorious 40 minutes too long). But the bloated mess of genius on offer should not detract from two startling performances - one from Mr. Pitt and the other from Christoph Waltz who here is simply sensational as the maniacal Landa, a man more concerned with his celebrity than his notoriety. Glorious in part. But a "Basterd" of a film to fully take in.
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Press Association
"Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France..." begins Quentin Tarantino's long mooted war opus, a blood-soaked fairytale divided into five ...
"Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France..." begins Quentin Tarantino's long mooted war opus, a blood-soaked fairytale divided into five hefty chapters. For most of the vengeful characters in Inglourious Basterds, there is no happy ever after - the body count is staggeringly high and almost nobody reaches the end credits unscathed. However, Tarantino's distinctive vision does end on an upbeat note as its plays loose and fast with historical fact, particularly with regards to the Third Reich, and splices genres to dizzying and sometimes breathtaking effect. The sharp mood swings, from the edge of seat nerves of the opening segment to the grisly humour which heralds the arrival of Brad Pitt's gung-ho avenger ("Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps... and I want my scalps!"), takes a little time to get used to. And Tarantino certainly takes his time, rather indulgently allowing his pulpy fiction to unspool over the course of two and a half hours. Thankfully, Inglourious Basterds is a return to form after Death Proof, the writer-director's high-octane contribution to the Grindhouse double-bill, blessed with an Oscar-worthy supporting performance from Christoph Waltz as a sadistic German Colonel with an unsteady grasp of idioms: "What's the A, merican expression? If the shoe fits you must wear it?" He ignites the opening chapter as Colonel Hans Landa, a Nazi officer with a nose for deception, who interrogates a farmer suspected of harbouring Jewish families. "May I switch to English for the remainder of this conversation?" asks Landa slyly as he bullies his suspect into submission, while the families he seeks lurk beneath the dusty floorboards, holding their breath much like us. Dozens of men, women and children perish in the subsequent bloodbath but one young woman, Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), escapes and reinvents herself as a cinema owner in Paris, where she plots her revenge against the men responsible for her family's demise. "I am going to burn down the cinema on Nazi night," she tells her co-worker and lover, referring to a forthcoming gala of propaganda film Nation's Pride starring real-life hero Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), which will be attended by Hitler (Martin Wuttke) and Goebbels (Sylvester Groth). Meanwhile, British Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) goes undercover to assassinate Hitler during the premiere at Shosanna's cinema, aided by leading lady Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). Simultaneously, a gang of merciless Jewish-American renegades, led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and his loyal sergeants Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), plots to blow up the cinema and kill the upper echelons of the Third Reich with a single attack. Operation Kino must succeed - the price of failure for the rest of Europe is unthinkable. Inglourious Basterds is a stylish and blackly humour escapade let down by the film's disjointed structure and Tarantino's reluctance to edit more judiciously. The picture unfolds in fits and spurts, energized by Waltz's scintillating portrayal of evil and directorial brio, particularly in the explosive finale when many of the characters come together under the roof of Shosanna's cinema. Kruger plies a fake smile to perfection as the snake in the Nazi grass and Laurent looks like a woman haunted by the ghosts of her horrific past. Pitt is forgettable in a quirky supporting role while Mike Myers enjoys a cameo as a doddering British general and Samuel L Jackson adds an unnecessary voiceover at the film's midway point. Violence is graphic but used sparingly including a cinema shootout that conjures memories of Brian De Palma's Scarface and enough scalping of nameless German characters to turn half the audience vegetarian. If the writer-director had just scalped his own vision by at least 30 minutes, this might have been his masterpiece.
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