Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is a stunning film, but it is by no means Tarantino's best. The story follows several tracks that all converge on one night for the premiere of a German propaganda film called Nation's Pride (fake trailer here). The first track is that of a group of merciless Jewish Nazi-killers known as The Basterds, led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt). The second and third tracks concern a young Jewish girl named Shosanna (Laurent), who just barely escapes with her life after SS Col. Hans Landa (Waltz) kills her entire family. There are a few more tracks involving actors and actresses and translators and Hitler as the movie closes in on its explosive finale, but I'll leave that to you to experience when you watch it.One thing that really irked me was that the intro credits, the musical style, and even the chapter narrative structure are all straight-up stolen from, or at least strongly reminiscent of, Tarantino's last stand-alone project, Kill Bill. The problem is that those aspects weren't even the best part about Kill Bill, which leads me to believe he's running out of creativity. For example, the Samuel L. Jackson narration, which probably seems cool on paper, ultimately feels empty on screen (mostly because he has nothing important to say). Also, while better than most movies, the dialogue in Inglourious Basterds isn't as luscious as I know he's capable of, and I feel the replay value will probably suffer as a result. Despite these disappointments, Tarantino is effective at building tension from simple situations and maintaining it over a 2.5 hour movie through stellar cinematography, lighting, and editing, which are all up to his usual exquisite form. I definitely recommend this movie to Tarantino fans, just understand that there's nothing revolutionary about it. In fact, it sits rather low on my ranking of Tarantino films. But it's still a quality film that's worth watching.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/
