The Movie Goat Reviews: Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino is one of those directors you either love or hate.  From his humble beginning with Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino went on an impressive winning streak with Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill, a movie that was so Tarantino that he had to split it up into two.  Seventeen years and a boatload of awards (mostly for Pulp Fiction) later, we have Inglourious Basterds, a fiction piece based loosely on World War II and headlined by Brad Pitt and Chris Waltz.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the video game industry, I should make clear right now that World War II is a little bit played out at the moment.  Video games need antagonists even more than movies do, and around 1992, it became abundantly clear that the one thing you could be sure no one would object to shooting at was Nazis.  The alternative was to go the mutant/monster route, or, for slightly more historical accuracy, dinosaurs.  The upshot is, that when you look at the entertainment industry as a whole, the vast majority of war movies are based on World War II, simply because there is almost nothing to worry about in the political correctness department.  Hitler = Villain, Nazis = Evil, and German is a language so coarse that it could make Goofy sound like he’s up to something nefarious.

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All of this should make Basterds seem unoriginal, but (probably thanks to Tarantino), it doesn’t.  At two hours and thirty minutes, it does seem a bit long, but following a bit of a slow start (Tarantino gets most of his Tarantino out of the way early), the movie holds the viewer’s attention very well all the way through the final climactic scene.  All the performances are great, especially Pitt and Waltz, the latter one flipping seamlessly from English to French to German to Italian and back again.

Which reminds me.  Have you ever sat in a movie set in a foreign country and wondered why everyone is speaking English?  I’m not talking about dubbing (which is itself pretty terrible) but, say, a Bond movie, or any of  the Disney films, where you wonder why these African/Italian/Native Americans seem to have somehow studied at Princeton?  The popular argument is it’s easier that way, but screw that, if I’m watching a story, I want to see it the way it would have actually gone down, and that includes all the linguistic dynamics and misunderstandings that come with it.  Basterds does just that.  It’s a movie almost completely set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, where the French speak French, the Nazis speak German (and some French when talking to the French) and the Americans and British speak English.  Does it mean we have to read?  Sure, but it’s worth it, trust me.

Bottom Line: If you can stomach a little bit of Quentin’s nonsense to start, and don’t mind the length, this movie is definitely worth your $8.  It’s not better than Pulp Fiction, but in its defense, Tarantino set the bar a little high with that one.