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Posted by Amy Smith Uncategorized

Taranthon Film Review: Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Inglourious Basterds (2009) is a revisionist war film that focuses on the Second World War and the battle between the Americans and the German Nazis. It is the sixth official film by Quentin Tarantino, and this film has a cast that includes Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Daniel Brühl. The film tells an alternative version of history as there are two separate plans made to kill the Nazis that ned up colliding together by the end of the film.

Hans Landa, played by Christoph Waltz, is easily the best villain I have seen from a Tarantino film to date. He is true evil, and that can be seen right from the start of the film. There is no sob story or glamourising his past, he is just presented as truly evil and I love that boldness of the script. Not only is he strong in terms of his views, but also his presentation skills. Waltz is captivating in this film, and you can’t help but watch him whenever he appears on screen. Aside from Uma Thurman as The Bride, this may just be my favourite Tarantino performance to date.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the character development in this film. Brad Pitt gives my favourite performance from him yet as Aldo Raine, and I think everyone aspires to be as confident and badass as he is throughout this film. As always, Daniel Brühl gives a great performance here, and one that I particularly like as it is more subtle and nuanced, in comparison to the bold performances of Pitt and Waltz.

I absolutely adore the script and story of this film. I love the idea of someone re-writing history, especially if it is the case of killing Hitler and a bunch of Nazis. It’s an interesting concept, and I found the script to be well done in blending the two stories together. I also found that the script managed to balance the use of German, French and English very well, and not one overpowered any other or felt forced.

As always, Tarantino knows how to frame and shoot a film. The cinematography here is stunning, particularly in the first and final scenes of the film. Both the opening and closing scene of the film are excellently made and well done in terms of suspense and satisfaction. This film certainly starts and ends on very high notes, with a clear understanding of the story and the tone.
This was quite a serious film from Tarantino, and I am actually quite pleased that he took a more serious tone for a film of this subject matter. I still felt Tarantino’s style in there from the amount of violence and his editing format in process. I did not particularly like the Chapter presentation here however. Unlike in the two Kill Bill films, I felt the chapter separations did not add any extra information or emphasis of the scenes and the film would have flowed better without them.
I also have to talk about the film time, because once again I feel that Tarantino is taking a film and stretching it out longer than it needed to be. I would have been happy with this film being two hours long, but he had to add certain characters and moments in to stretch this out an extra 30 minutes. This felt completely unnecessary, and made me desperate to see Hans Landa or Aldo Raine back on the screen whenever they were not in a scene.

Tarantino is certainly back on form with Inglourious Basterds. From the performances to the compelling story and vicious villain, this is a film I know I will be going back to time after time. I may have liked a different type of editing style for this film, but that is something I can overlook when it comes to a film like this. This is a great film from Tarantino, and it may just be one of his best.

4/5

Have you seen Inglourious Basterds? Did you enjoy it as much as I did, or do you have a different opinion on it? Let me know in the comments below and let’s have a conversation.

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