Inglorious Basterds review

Number 120 on the top 1000 films of all time is Quentin Tarantino's war-comedy-drama Inglorious Basterds.

Set during WW2, Inglorious Basterds tells the storyfictional story of two different attempts to assassinate leading members of the Nazi party: Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Boorman.  The first one revolves around Shoshannah Dreyfuss.  (Melanie Laurent) Dreyfuss' family were massacred by Hans Lauda (Christoph Waltz) a ruthless Nazi, known as the Jew Hunter.

The second revolves around the eponymous Inglorious Basterds, a crack-commando team of soldiers led by Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt.) They are charged with an operation to blow up Hitler and the other leading Nazis.

Despite having two separate plots and multiple subplots, everything within Inglorious Basterds worked perfectly.  it would be easy to become confused by the large ensemble cast, which includes Michael Fassbender, Daniel Bruhl amongst others, but it was always clear what was going on.  And considering Tarantino's films can be complicated and told in an unchronological fashion (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) this is saying something.

And of course, another problem with having such a large cast is that it can be easy for one actor to overshadow another.  But I don't think thishappened here.  Every character had their chanced to have their story told.  One particular example is Daniel Bruhl who played Private Frederick Zoller, a soldier who single-handedly fought off 300 Italian soldiers, killing over half of them.  Armed with a machine gun, he was able to mow them down from his position in a clocktower.  Goebbels decides to create a propaganda film about Zoller's exploits, yet upon watching it, Zoller finds himself sickened by the level of violence.  He leaves the screening halfway through, as he is so disturbed by what he sees.  This was a nice way of humanising his character.  And, while it didn't romanticise the Nazis, it did show that some were human who were capable of feeling guilt and remorse.

A very big exception to this point is the character of Hans Lauda, played superbly by Christolph Waltz.  His first scene sees him interrogating French dairy farmer, Perrier La Padite, whom he suspects of harbouring the Dreyfuss family.  The tension in this scene was palpable especially when Lauda's suspicions are confimred.  But what makes Lauda a despicable feeling is how he is only loyal to himself.  Despite wearing a Nazi uniform, he does not share the Nazi ideology.  He proves himself a turncoat, where at the film's conclusion, he helps to allow Raine's assassination plot to continue, in exchange for amnesty.  Waltz won the best supporting actor oscar for his role and rightly so.

And now we've come to Brad Pitt who was great as Aldo Raine.  Raine and the rest of his commandos were essentially mercenaries; not giving a damn about the rules of war, as long as the job is done.  In fact, Raine says that the Nazi's aren't human and, as such, don't deserve the same level of respect.  Raine and the rest of his men were anti-heroes - brutal and violent, but with their own strong moral code.

Finally, we've reached my favourite storyline of the film: the Shoshanna Dreyfuss subplot.  I was rooting for her, because her motivations were crystal clear.  Her only desire was to avenge her murdered family.  To implement this, she plotted to burn down the cinema where Zoller's film was showing.  Although she knew this would lead to lots of collateral damage, the fact that we saw her tragic backstory accounted for this.  We understood why she was just so cold and this made her the most human character.

All in all, we had all the hallmarks of a great Tarantino film.  There was a gratuitious amount of violence, plenty of dark humour and even Samuel L. Jackson cameoed in an uncredited role.