The Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews
A convoluted plot about a Jewish girl hiding out in Nazi Germany, a bunch of Americans who are on a mission to kill Nazis and a propaganda film.
I have to say, bratty and egotistical though he is, I love Quentin Tarantino. This was so good that the next night we had to go back and watch the wonderfulness that is Pulp Fiction again.
This movie was amazing in so many ways. Brad Pitt is an excellent actor, and does a fine job here. The evil Nazi officer (played by Christoph Waltz) actually upstages him, not easy to do but it was a great part. All the main characters are perfect, and are great fun to watch.
It’s Tarantino, so it’s violent, but the violence in this was SO over-the-top that most of it (like the scalpings) didn’t look remotely real. But it is violent. Which this otter loves, but opinions may vary.
Oh, and of course since it’s Tarantino, it’s not just a movie with a great plot, it’s also an homage to another style of film. Which, in this case, is spaghetti westerns. Now, I may have missed half the references in Kill Bill but damn, this Otter was raised on Sergio Leone. It was wonderful icing on the movie cake.
Then there was Mr. Otter. All the way home, and for the next day or so, he’d say, but that guy had the wrong uniform…or, that division wasn’t there…or some other historian-on-a-stick observation trying to correlate this movie to some semblance of historical verisimilitude. Finally I said, honey, give it up. This movie had the same relationship to actual WWII events that the Pirates of the Caribbean movies did to the actual history of pirates in the Caribbean…NONE.
And he seemed to be okay with that, once it was explained to him.
Yes, there are problems. Firstly with the title. When asked, Tarantino would not explain the u in Inglourious and said, “But the ‘Basterds’? That’s just the way you say it: Basterds.” He stated in an interview that the misspelled title is “a Basquiat-esque touch.” He further commented on The Late Show with David Letterman that “Inglourious Basterds” is the “Tarantino way of spelling it.” In the film itself, the words are briefly shown in their misspelled form on Aldo’s rifle. (Thank you, Wikipedia!)
And the other problem? the ending. Which is flat and kind of, HUH?. Tarantino himself admitted that he had no clue how to end this movie; he has said that he tried to write an ending two or three times and just couldn’t come up with one…obviously, they just did what they could. I found it flat and kind of disappointing.
But those two quibbles aside? go see it. If you have a sense of humor, if you love Bad Boy Tarantino, if you like Brad Pitt, if you like WWII movies, if you like westerns, if you like film, if you want to be amused and maybe angered…go see it. It’s a wild ride, and well worth the admission price.
theotterlimits 