If you're hankering for a film and want to find out if this film is worth seeing, the short answer is: Yes, go see it!
This'll be my first post on here and I wanted to do a review of one of Quentin Tarantino's more recent films: Inglourious Basterds. A lot of people have heard of Tarantino through the media hype around Django: Unchained and the controversial nature of his direction and previous work, so I chose Inglourious Basterds as it is one of my favourite Tarantino's and I have watched it quite a few times. Overall, I really like this film, it has some absolutely amazing scenes, with really good pacing throughout and an absolutely fantastic use of sound and music. I'll try and keep spoilers to a minimum; there definitely won't be any major plot spoilers.
The film begins with introducing Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) as a sly, manipulative Nazi officer as he massacres the family of Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent): the sole survivor. We catch up with her in Nazi-occupied Paris a couple of years later where she now owns a cinema with her black boyfriend, Marcel, and having attracted the attention of a young war-hero, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl). Zoller, smitten with her, arranges the premier of his new film at her cinema to gain her favour, with the majority of the German high-command in attendance. At the same time, the "Basterds", a group of the best Jewish-American soldiers around led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), were drawn to the premier for that precise reason. Their paths cross in a spectacular fashion, rewriting history and exacting revenges alike.
The casting for the film was absolutely fantastic, from Christoph Waltz's psychopathic, calculating, maniac self to the simple yet very effective Brad Pitt. If any of you have seen Waltz's portrayal of Dr King Schultz in Django: Unchained, then his character is essentially then same, just in a wartime Paris setting rather than a western. Tarantino's direction is excellent as always, creating unbearable tension, emotion and comedy where necessary. The scene where we are introduced to "The Bear Jew" builds up the outcome absolutely brilliantly, and really acts as a scene that defines the "Basterds"; Tarantino seamlessly adds such depth to scenes, giving them a multitude of messages and doing it all whilst creating such easy watching. Tarantino has talked about how he loves shooting scenes where the characters talk over food in interviews, and this is no exception. Right from the beginning, there are food scenes galore, and he makes them wonderfully interesting, the "Strudel" scene where Shosanna encounters Landa for the second time is absolutely masterfully done, right done to the last morsel that the colonel did not eat. Another aspect of the film that I really feel is absolutely spot on, is the music and general sound, with the Ennio Morricone soundtrack a perfect addition to the already great film, immersing the watcher in wonderful aged music that really merges perfectly with the on screen action. Only 30% of the film was actually in English which is a very strange sensation; reading the subtitles may detract from the general experience, but the authenticity of it is captivating, not to mention how much more expression can be put through in different languages. The sound effects are brutally beautiful; when Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is being questioned by Lt Raine, the sound of his finger in her bullet wound is so exaggerated that you really flinch and feel for her, not to mention the gloriously gory bullet hit sounds themselves.
A criticism of Inglourious Basterds is the slight lack of focus in terms of characters, there isn't a main character that you can all root for and who hogs the screen time, which in itself is a compliment since not many of this kind of film manages to do that effectively. When Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) is introduced in his grand entrance, you expect him to have a major role in the plot but his character really never comes to do much, other than be awesomely quintessentially British. Other than Hicox, it seems to flick between characters all the time, without fully developing any of them. It begins with Shosanna's back story so you would expect her role to be major, but the title is Inglourious Basterds, which suggests that they are the focus of the film. Even if you do take the "Basterds" as the main focus of the film, none of them are ever really given that much development, despite Brad Pitt's brilliantly crude accent being one of my favourite things about the whole group. The gore is always something that I want to criticise in Tarantino films, but in this one, it wasn't even that overpowering, apart from the close-up of a certain German leader's face being torn to shreds, the finale was relatively bloodless (in the literal sense) and overall I found it quite tolerable.
Overall, I would have to say that Inglourious Basterds is an absolutely fantastic film that I would recommend to any Tarantino fan or even as a film to get you into Tarantino as a whole. It is brilliant from start to finish, with brilliantly slick dialogue, masterfully integrated soundtrack, fantastic characters that will stick with you, and its minor flaws can even be seen as strengths if you have the right mindset. Tarantino is a master of suspense, action, drama and comedy all rolled into one truly great film.
Final Verdict: 8.5/10
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