Inglorious Bastards

Inglorious Bastards ( Theatrical )

Quentin Tarantino has been working on the script that would become Inglorious Bastards for the better part of 10 years now, going through many different incarnations over the years.  And now finally Tarantino has decided to bring us his ultimate World War II revenge fantasy to the big screen, but is Inglorious Bastards exactly what the studio’s marketing department making it out to be?  We have your review.

The movie begins “Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied France” where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris.  The movie jumps ahead a few years with the forming of the Bastards, a group of Jewish-American guerrilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt).  The fact that this film is called Inglorious Bastards is kinda deceiving because the Bastards are really the third tier characters in the film.  The movie is more about Shosanna and Colonel Landa.  And it is those 2 characters that completely steal the movie, especially the character of Colonel Has Landa.  Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa “The Jew Hunter,” an SS officer who has a knack for detective work, delivers a subtle and very distinct performance of pure evil, that in the hands of any other actor would be completely over the top with a broader performance that would not work for this kind of film.  The problem is the studio is selling this movie as an action packed World War II film, when it is so totally not that movie.  Inglorious Bastards is a dramatic character piece and at times a Slap-Stick Comedy that happens to take place in W.W.II with a few scenes of brutal violence.

Quentin Tarantino has created an expertly written film with the signature Tarantino dialogue that builds tension as the scenes go on.  Inglorious Bastards is easily one of Tarantino’s best works and it is nice to see the director doing his own thing and simply referencing films he has been inspired by rather than trying to copy stuff from said films (as in Kill Bill).