Inglourious Basterds

"This here may well be my masterpiece"- Lt. Aldo Raine

That's right folks, Quentin Tarantino has set his quirky gaze on World War II and, boy, does he have one hell of a vision.

Inglourious Basterds, at it's base, follows two intertwining stories. Fist, the tale of a Nazi movie premiere at a small Paris cinema owned by Emmanuelle Mimieux. Kicker is Emmanuelle is really a young Jewish woman named Shosanna, whose family were murdered by the SS, and, damn, does she have a devilish scheme planned for the unsuspecting goose-steppers. The other, the story of a band of wily violent, Nazi-scalping, Jewish-American soldiers leading a ruthless assault on the Third Reich that they plan to end in the death of German high command at said movie premiere.

Throw in Tarantino's trademark machine-gunning, smart-ass dialouge (see: Pulp Fiction) and vibrant pop-art visuals (see: Kill Bill) that Andy Warhol would go gay for (well, again...) and you got yourself the movie of the summer, and possibly the year.

Brad Pitt as Lt. Raine is spectacularly funny, mixing a redneck drawl with a working man smarts to produce a character that is all things Amurican. Melanie Laurent, as the wickedly beautiful Emmanuelle/Shosanna, is utterly captivating and sinister.

However, all these performances are overshadowed by the incredible Christoph Waltz, who portrays the "Jew Hunter" Col. Hans Landa. As the character who ties the entire shindig together, Landa is sickeningly charming, unwaveringly polite, and sly as a fox. Simply put, he steals every scene he's in.

Despite a running time of over 2 1/2 hours, the pacing of the movie in five chapters keeps your attention sharply focused on every little detail. Throw in some seriously gory scenes, a ton of great laughs, and a seemingly unintentional edge-of-your-seat feel, and you'll be surprisingly putting on your pickpocket outfit and asking Tarantino, "May I have some more?"

So as good ole' Lt. Aldo Raine put it best, Inglourious Basterds may very well be Tarantino's masterpiece.



Inglourious Basterds Official Site