INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Quentin Tarantino
Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz,
Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Til Schweiger
Quentin Tarantino throws away the history book and reimagines World War Two as a crazed wish-fulfillment fantasy, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on what you know and how you feel about World War Two history. The story plays out on two tracks that eventually intersect. In a riff on "The Dirty Dozen", Brad Pitt and a team of cutthroat Jewish commandos roam the French countryside in advance of the Normandy Invasion, killing and scalping anybody they find in a German uniform. And in Paris, a Jewish theater owner and her black projectionist are planning a special surprise for the Nazi high command at the gala premiere of Goebbels' latest masterpiece. It opens with the title "Once upon a time . . ." and there's a storybook (or maybe comic book) quality to Tarantino's approach. It might be the kind of thing that could only come from somebody whose knowledge of war comes from movies and not war itself. But it's undeniably the work of somebody with a mad passion for film and an instinct for how to use it. Some of the best scenes are simply long conversations, suspenseful cat-and-mouse sessions, most of them featuring Christoph Waltz, who sets a whole new standard for civilized, scene-stealing villainy. The incendiary climax in the cinema, with the Führer in attendance, references Hitchcock, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and (no accident) the 1930 French movie "Prix de Beauté". It's breathtaking - a bloody, cathartic valentine from a reigning master to anybody who hates Nazis or just loves what movies can do.
