Let me put this on record that Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Inglourious Basterds is a deliriously cinematic experience filled with dazzling dialogue delivery, superb performances, a trail of abrupt violence, and guaranteed direction! Along with all that, it also happens to be a ton of fun and possibly (one of) the most entertaining movies of the whole summer!
That first scene of the movie (which has been the best opening scene I’ve seen for a film in a long time) represents chapter one out of the five that comprise Inglourious Basterds. It also serves to sum up all that makes the movie great. There are laughs, both genuine and uneasy, it introduces a very talented new actor and an inescapable tension leads you firmly along moving from fancy to inquisitiveness to sheer dread! The movie is bound to make you laugh out loud and some scenes are so brutal that you will cringe with the speed of a reflex action! Others will charge you with emotions or induce an adrenaline rush in you. The four chapters after the first one will introduce you to the Basterds, 
the mysterious and beautiful owner of a Parisian theater, a British OSS-led assassination plot, and then culminates in thirty-minutes of pure bliss filled with suspense, heartbreak, surprises, and grind house-inspired carnage.
It’s a beautiful thing to behold.
Regardless of what the trailers might have led you to believe, this certainly isn’t a full-on action movie. There are three story threads running through the film that all wind together towards an explosive finale. Brad Pitt’s squad of Jewish-American soldiers played by Eli Roth, BJ Novak, and others is formed with a simple mission: terrorize and kill as many Nazis as possible. They do so in brutal and bloody ways, and in the rare circumstances where they do leave a survivor it’s with a lasting mark by which to remember them. The other two I shall refrain from disclosing and let you see for yourself! This is a review and not the plot summary. Head over to Wikipedia if that is what you are after!
Brad Pitt’s performance did not surprise me and it shouldn’t surprise anyone else either, but it may serve as a reminder that he’s at his best in roles that lean oddly comedic. Some may see his Tennessee mountain-man as a cartoon. Most of the remaining performances are solid, but two of them stand out as less than that. On the minor end, Fassbender misplays his British film critic-turned-soldier by over-doing the “jolly good” bits of dialogue most severely when we first meet him opposite Myers. The fact that Myers gives the more subdued performance of the two is shocking to say the least. And then there’s Eli Fucking Roth. He plays a Basterd nicknamed “The Bear-Jew” by the Nazi 
soldiers who’ve heard tales of him bashing in heads with a baseball bat. The character is imposing enough to overcome most of Roth’s suckage, but not enough of it. He murders every piece of dialogue he’s given, misses every comedic beat (aside from one involving Italian hand gestures), and his expressions consist solely of smarmy smirk or pursed-lipped psycho stare. It’s almost enough to wish Tarantino had played the role himself… okay, that’s not true, but Roth is pretty damn bad.
As valid as these criticisms are, it goes without saying that this is easily Tarantino’s most mature and assured film. It’s filled with his stylistic touches but at times it seems devoid of the eccentricity that exists just for the sake of it (although Jackson explaining the properties of nitrate film to us comes close). The script avoids unnecessary detours into wacky pop culture tangents meant solely to up the ‘cool’ factor, and he shows an almost mastery of character, dialogue, and pacing. The film is filled with beautiful and striking images… a shot framed by an open door as a girl runs for her life, cameras that glide up and over walls to follow their prey, the face of a laughing ghost flickering within some smoke, deaths marked by brutality and sadness.
The pain, violence, and absurdity of every World War II genre film ever made has probably played before Tarantino’s eyes at one point or another. Inglourious Basterds is him filtering it all through his wit, enthusiasm, and artistic abilities, and turning it into his best film yet. It’s also big film-making at its best, not big in budget, effects, or pretense, but big in spirit, intentions, and entertainment. The film is 153 minutes long and not one of them is boring or artificial. It may be an unexpected adventure of unusual proportions and design, but it’s still the most glorious adventure of the summer.
Watch the trailer below:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEsPkdlFcxE
