INGLORIOUS BASTERDS: REVIEW

Some movies hit the moment just right. Others stand outside of the moment, and just exist as good movies. This is one of the latter.

How good is INGLORIOUS BASTERDS? Hitchcock good. The Pillowman good. Scorcese good. Brian De Palma when he's sane good. Pick your genre. It's up there. This is all the more promising because it comes from Quentin Tarantino, who we knew was good, but I don't think even he knew he was this good. We're a long way from Reservoir Dogs

I don't want to give anything away, because if you haven't seen it, you deserve to walk as unaware as possible. The trailers you have seen are accurate while being completely misleading. As INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is, indeed, a story of Brad Pitt's 8 boys, much in the same way that it's also a story about a newly-made orphan's revenge, Hilter's boorishness, Goebbels's insecurity, a Nazi Officer unlike any you've seen before and the most menacing eating of pastries ever put on film. Yes it is all of that, and more importantly, it's fun.

A WWII movie that's fun, you say? Preposterous. Tasteless. How dare you not take something serious, seriously. Some have even written that the movie is troubling or, worse, evil, for "anything that makes Fascism unreal is wrong. " (Jonathan Rosenbaum- see below) Perhaps. Nazis are serious business. Just ask Mel Brooks.

But it's worth remarking that Shakespeare, Moliere and Gilbert and Sullivan got a lot more milegage out of seemingly-gentle parody than anything Strindberg or Ibsen ever wrote. The point being, you can make your serious art all you want about serious subjects, but to really kill the monsters of history, the best tactic is to deflate them. That doesn't mean you're not taking them seriously, it means you're serious about that cream pie you just slammed in their face.

That's Tarantino's method, anyway. He starts with a set up that is as dark as it is funny, scary as it is horrific, involving a silent game of chess played between two men talking what seems like minor details. Really, they're talking about human lives, and the fate of those lives will impact other lives. And with one decision made during this scene, a pinball is let loose that eventually ends up in a whole lotta people being dead. Not just here, but throughout the movie. And not in ways you expect.

Part of the strength of this scene, and many others, is that you KNOW you're watching a Tarantino movie. Any minute now, 88 ninjas will descend from nowhere and rape someone in the back closet while Kurt Russell drives by at 100mph. Why? Because that's the kind of stuff that happens in his movies. You're geared for anything. And a lot of the satisfaction comes from when things DON'T happen. This may sound boring; but one of the smarter things Hitchcock ever observed was the definition of suspense. If two men are talking with a bomb underneath their table, and the bomb goes off, that is action. If the bomb does not go off, it is suspense. I may have mangled the quote, but you get the idea.

Which is not to say that nothing happens in this movie, far from it, a lot of things do. It is generally true that when your traditional good looks hero walks into a room at about halfway through a movie, usually, he is walking out of it, otherwise the movie would be over. It is not true in this movie. Who would have thought that out of all of Tarantino's homages in this film- and he borrows from everywhere, from THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI to THE WIZARD OF OZ- his smartest move would be to take a page from the bible of DEEP BLUE SEA, of all things? You know what they say about homage. When you steal from another movie artfuly, it is homage. When you steal from another movie poorly, it is hackery.

But more than just playing with expectations, the movie soars on its performances. Not only from Brad Pitt- who is great as Lt. Aldo Raine - and Eli "HOSTEL" Roth- who is suprisingly good- but from the heroine and the villain. First, the heroine.


I've never seen Melanie Laurent before, and part of the advantage of not seeing someone perform is that you're not sure if they are actually performing. As the out-for-revenge Shosanna, she is so good that I wasn't sure if she was acting or if she just happened to be caught on camera while plotting the death of the entire Third Reich. Shosanna is a fictional avenger on scale with Medea, and Michael Corleone and the The Count of Monte Cristo.

The other key ingredient to the movie's success is the villain. You would think in a movie about killing Nazis, that villain would be Hitler. But you would be wrong: Hilter is the prize, the potential low hanging fruit who storms about like Baby Huey. Here, the real evil here is Col. Hans Landa, who is not only the embodiment of the darkness that lurks in the hearts of men (see Batman, The) but a genuniely hilarious and interesting character. He's the one in the beginning playing mental chess while drinking milk. Not only does he do bad things, not only does he eventually propose a deal worthy of the Devil, but he's smart too. Smart villains are almost always much more interesting foils, it's better to have to keep up with them than to have them try to keep up with us. (see Joker, The). I have never seen Christoph Waltz before, but after his performance as Col Hans Landa, I can't wait to see him again. Of all of his great moments, I think my favorite is when he asks what happened to the actresses's leg. When he gets his answer, he does what you would probably do. You'll see.

Some of the reviews I have read of this film (although the vast majority have been positive) are wise old men shaking their heads, wondering when Tarantino will grow up. Such a shame that he refuses to chose to trivialize important matters! Such a tragedy he cannot pick a constant genre or tone! How offensive that he refuses to stick to what actually happened instead of what could have!

History exists is in books and memories, and deserves at least one honest movie that gets it right. But here's the thing: WWII and all that happened therein has gotten that movie, time and time and time and time again. We know Nazis are evil. We know that the unthinkable happened, and could easily happen again, and maybe even is. We know that people deny the unthinkable with alarming ferocity, trying to rewrite history to suit their agendas. But this movie is not akin to "holocaust denial" (for this and more grouchy thoughts from a smart man that I cannot agree with, go to http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=16606 )

I say that while you can take on evil with a serious, straight portrayal, another way one way to take down monsters of history is to invent creatures of fiction who are or were powerful enough to take them down. (see America, Captain) I say that history would have been better with Shoshanna and Aldo Raine in existance, and on our side. I say that while Hans Landa is fictional, there were enough real life counterparts to mimic him that our need for heroes is greater than ever. I say that while Kill Bill was fun, Tarantino's choice to focus his fictional revenge on a real monster makes for one of the more powerful and energizing movies in a long time.

Life is too strange to tell every story about a dark time in the same solemn tone. Maybe it's a generational thing. I dunno. But I know that INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is a damn good movie.

RATING: * * * * * stars (out of 5)

P.S. There is one scene in this movie that does not work at all: not as exposition or parody. It features Mike Myers. It's not that he's bad, necessarily, it's that suddenly Dr. Evil is giving a briefing in a british accent. Odd.