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Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Time Out rating

Average user rating

66 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

You’ve got to admire the sheer, infectious force of Quentin Tarantino’s personality. Is there any other popular American director, who, like Tarantino, is constantly ranting and raving about cinema’s glorious past and giving young filmgoers reason to extend their DVD library back beyond ‘Star Wars’? Even the name of his new film is fondly stolen from a little known Italian movie of the 1970s. It’s only when you turn to Tarantino’s own films that things get more tricky. For the sad truth is that Tarantino, like cheap wine, just isn’t improving with age.

Which is an awkward reality because Tarantino obviously wants to put away childish things with this new film. Not only does Brad Pitt close the film with the self-regarding line ‘This may well be my masterpiece’, but ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is a little more restrained and a little more quiet than films like ‘Death Proof’ and ‘Kill Bill’.

I say ‘a little’ because much of the film is not quiet at all: when the music comes, it’s loud; when the deaths occur, they’re gruesome, even sadistic; and when the plot kicks in, it’s pure, wild fantasy.

The film moves liberally between French, German and English dialogue and takes us through five chapters. First, in 1941, we see a Nazi, Colonel Hans Landa (played by Austrian Christoph Waltz), known as ‘The Jew Hunter’, discover and kill a Jewish family in France; only the youngest daughter gets away.

Then we’re introduced to the ‘basterds’, a gang of eight Jewish-American soldiers who, while deep undercover, roam Nazi-occupied France, murdering German soldiers and collecting their scalps. They’re led by a Tennessee goodtime boy, played by Pitt, but oddly they’re not on screen much. Pitt is lively but he disappears for a long time and is upstaged by Waltz, who gives a teasing turn of sly comedy and cruel charm. His scenes are the film’s best.

For the film’s final chapters, we leap to Paris in 1944, where the two stories collide. The girl who fled the Nazis, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) is now running a cinema (of course) which plays films by Riefenstahl and Pabst. A Nazi private, Frederick (Daniel Brühl), takes a shine to her. It turns out that his gun-toting heroics are being immortalised in a film produced by Goebbels, who decides that Shosanna’s cinema is perfect for the premiere. Shosanna and the ‘basterds’ decide that the screening is their chance to strike.

This might be a period movie, but still we clock Tarantino’s signature style – the extended, know-it-all dialogue, the tricky gunplay, the pop-cultural nods. There’s even a Mexican stand-off à la ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and the obligatory ‘nigger’ reference, this time in French. But this lacks the stylistic pizzazz of Tarantino’s best, and by putting more emphasis than usual on the chatter it makes it more obvious that the talk often lacks wit and verve.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tarantino takes the history of cinema more seriously than the history of Europe. References to films abound: Michael Fassbender’s British spy (who has an amusing, if silly, ‘Dr Strangelove’-like scene with a superior played by Mike Myers) used to be a critic and regurgitates what sounds like a Wikipedia entry on German film, while another character wonders whether he prefers Chaplin or the French silent actor Max Linder.

What’s not clear is what Tarantino wants to achieve: ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is an immature work that doesn’t know whether it’s a pastiche, a spoof, a counterfactual drama, a revenge tragedy or a character comedy. How can we, within a space of minutes, feel adult sympathy for a hunted Jewish family and then childish glee when a Nazi’s skull is crushed with a baseball bat? The one cancels out the other.

But perhaps the biggest faux pas is introducing real historical characters. Tarantino’s inventions are big enough – not least Waltz’s terrific ‘movie’ Nazi – so why does he have to court implausibility by dragging in a loony Hitler (Martin Wuttke, nothing special) and introducing Goebbels? You might imagine, too, that this film was written in the ’60s: Tarantino seems blithely uninterested in more than 60 years of slow reconciliation between Europe and its past.

‘Subtle’ is not a word in Tarantino's lexicon. At the film’s heart is a fatal attempt to conflate fact with fiction and a celebration of vengeance that’s misplaced and embarrassing. Loyal fans expecting a familiar patchwork of Tarantino tics and quirks – ‘Pulp History’ or ‘Kill Hitler’ – might not be disappointed. Those expecting anything approaching progress, cinematically or ideologically, probably will be.

Author: Dave Calhoun 2009-08-18 13:07:20

Time Out London issue 2035, 20-26 August 2009

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User reviews of this film

Bob said...

Posted on Oct 17 2009 20:45 Easily film of the year, a must watch if your a film lover!

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David Green said...

Posted on Oct 08 2009 16:28 This is pure Tarantino Pornography, and all budding independent filmmakers (myself included) should learn from this master-class.

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Jools said...

Posted on Oct 07 2009 08:09 I read the reviews but was almost literally dragged into seeing this film by my husband against my will. I thought it was an incredibly entertaining film, fabulous, intense dialogue and great, often comic acting.

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Myself said...

Posted on Oct 04 2009 02:36 film is crap

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Jim said...

Posted on Sep 30 2009 17:26 amazing film with great character development, outstanding performances from cast particularly C. Waltz as the jew hunter. fantastic take on ww2 that shows the brutality of all parties and of the soldiers duty to his country, without taking itself to serious!
the score is also fantastic

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James said...

Posted on Sep 27 2009 13:57 quite awful - first shot was a clearly late 20th century scene, which irritated but things really got so much worse witha really dire plot that dealt with situations that should nto betrivialised. Other Tarantino stuck safely to the fantasy and were great - this is simply dire

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roger rabbit said...

Posted on Sep 26 2009 21:02 Was fantastic ....when the end credits came up ! Avoid & when comes out on dvd buy for someone you hate !Had a more enjoyable 2hrs in B & Q ...check out there power tools

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ARM said...

Posted on Sep 25 2009 12:49 I felt Tarantino's take on WW2 to be both vulgar and offensive. Brad Pitt seemed to me to be badly mis-cast in this role, the scene in the cinema where they are pretending to be Italian was laughable - for all the wrong reasons. There were a few saving graces, C Waltz was excellent as the Jew Hunter, as was Mélanie Laurent as the cinema owner. Both easily out-performed Pitt. To make any sort of comparison to Pulp Fiction, as some have on this forum however, I find insulting.

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victoria said...

Posted on Sep 21 2009 16:33 I was gobsmacked by the sheer feelgood factor of this terrific film. The critics hsve missed the point. The script is witty and ironic .It hits the nail on the head or should that be scalp,about the paranoid psychotic nature of prejudice, in its worst manifestations. The end is a stroke of genius in that it simply allows the audience to believe that Hitler was assassinated even though we know he wasn't. The soundtrack takes wonderful risks with music that turns old fashioned sentimentality on its head to breathtaking scenes and carries you along in sheer disbelief at the audacity of the heroic challenge which Tarantino has given Hollywood. It works. Brad Pitt has been liberated by looking ugly and his humorous acting proves it.T. has directed all the actors so well they r superb. The camerawork, script and direction balanced with soundtrack cocks a snoop at every corny lying violent war film u know. It is political without being dogmatic, it can be shocking but always optimistic. It is human but funny. The critics are jealous. See it and feel wonderful.

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Peter said...

Posted on Sep 16 2009 10:41 I really should have read timeouts review, it would have saved me the price of the tickets. Left after an hour, could not stand it any longer.

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DV said...

Posted on Sep 15 2009 15:11 I thoroughly enjoyed this latest slice of Tarantino-pulp. It's simply a revenge story that pokes fun at what was a ridiculous collection of people: the nazis. The campest depiction of Hitler that I've seen since the original Producers movie. Great performances, great plot, great soundtrack, and a very satisfying ending, depending upon your perspective! Go see it.

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Rose said...

Posted on Sep 14 2009 22:57 This film, as usual with a Tarantino film, was just fantastic. The best film I've seen at the cinema in a very long time, it came close to Pulp Fiction in my estimations. This review has some points but it is general far too negative and just wrong. Inglourious Basterds is an amazing film, clever, funny, and emotionally manipulative (in a good way!) and I came out of the showing beaming.

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David said...

Posted on Sep 14 2009 11:39 A fabulous film. And Waltz and Tarantino have created Cinema's best ever Nazi. Pitt good too but couldn't understand a lot of what he said. I don't know who this critic is writing for? It's not cinema audiences, One can examine a subject too deeply and come up with pseudo-academic tosh.

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AB said...

Posted on Sep 10 2009 16:24 Alright...for all I know nothing remains minutes after you have left the theatre.
I found it Long, full of over used tarantinesque strings, the revenge, the music, the references, all teh things that made tarantino's cinema new and fresh by repetting themselves in every signle of its films just end up making it dull and annoying.
That's it ! that's exactly the word that I was looking for for the feeling I had while watching teh movie, I was annoyed and irritated.
Yes, there is at time beautifull cinematography and one or 2 good lines, but over 2hours and a half that's a bit slim. I genuinely wanted to love that movie, and felt so so so disapointed.
The tarantino stamp still brings in the audience but for how long?

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Kieran said...

Posted on Sep 08 2009 13:06 An honest review of a disappointing film.

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