Though District 9 may be the surprise hit of the summer, Inglourious Basterds is the best movie of the summer. Quentin Tarantino has woven together a film that can't help but entertain. The over indulgent running times of some summer flicks like Transformers 2, Public Enemies, and Funny People had become a major turn off to spending my Sunday afternoons at the cine-plex. However, there is the correct way to make a movie with a 2½ hour run time… the correct way is to make your movie filled with excitement and intrigue much the way Tarantino sculpted Basterds.
Brad Pitt does his best John Wayne impersonation as the lead basterd, Lt. Aldo Raine. Raine and his group of heavenly thugs lay down the law on any unfortunate ‘Natzees’ (spelled as it is pronounced throughout the film) they may come across. Eli Roth and Til Schweiger are both superb as supporting basterds.
As the stories unfold on screen, we start to see the climax coming together. Much like Pulp Fiction or Go, the outlying plot-lines do come to a head in a dramatic bang ‘em up fashion. Basterds is not a war movie in the way Saving Private Ryan or Platoon are war movies. It’s a fictitious dream theory meant only to entertain. Who said Hitler had to die in a bunker with Eva Braun? There is a fair share of grotesque scalping, bat bludgeoning, and blood splatter but it seems light enough for the dissections that some horror/war movies have shown in the past. I think the opening march in Saving Private Ryan was just as extreme if not more.
Of the many things that are worth mentioning about the Basterds, two standout more than anything; first, the performance of Christoph Waltz, playing Nazi Co. Hans Landa, demands early attention for the Best Supporting Oscar even this early in the game. Waltz gave such a spark of evil to Landa that he only needed to be seen for a split second to elicit fear. The second is Tarantino himself. His camera shots, the cinematography, and his ability to get the best from his actors plays out so beautifully on film.
Inglourious Basterds is the best film of the year to date.
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