Just Plain Glorious

I'll be the first to say that I am not a Quentin Tarantino fan. Heresy, I know. The Kill Bill films are overrated and I have never bothered to see Pulp Fiction or Grindhouse. I am not one for gratuitous violence and the films seem downright campy. However, after seeing Inglourious Basterds I take that all back.

Set during World War II, Basterds follows two "rebels" as they attempt to bring down the Nazis. The first being Shoshanna (Mélanie Laurent), an owner of a French cinema, who when she was younger, witnessed the slaughter of her family at the hands of Nazi colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) -- "the Jew Hunter" as the movie so lovingly calls him. The other renegade, if you will, is Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), who leads a group of Jewish soldiers on a mission to scalp as many Nazis as possible (and this being a Tarantino film, yes, you see the scalping).

Watching Inglourious Basterds does require the viewer to suspend reality, as Tarantino completely disregards the historical implications of World War II. However, even with (and maybe because of) the major inaccuracies, Basterds is a whole lot of fun. The cast relishes Tarantino's script, and Pitt and Waltz are particularly superb. At first, Pitt's backwoods southern drawl is grating, but by Basterds' conclusion his Lieutenant Raine is an endearing "American hero." As it stands right now, Waltz has an Academy Award nomination (and maybe a win) locked up. Landa is the film's backbone as he's both amusing and unequivocally terrifying.

The major flaw with Basterds is the pacing. The film is too long, and the two best scenes come at the beginning and end. Maybe it's the brilliance of those scenes that makes the rest of the movie not-as-great, but Tarantino does get bogged down in awkward transitions and endless dialogue. Even for a film-goer with a queasy stomach, like myself, Inglourious Basterds makes the scalping worth it.

Grade: A-*

*upgraded from the original grade of B+ to an A- after a second viewing.