Film Review: Inglorious Basterds (2009)

Review by: SweetReviewer
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Released: August 22, 2009

Inglorious Basterds, although not considered Horror certainly has its share of gore and can be well classified under the category for today. It is also subsequently directed by Quentin Tarantino who loves gore and terrorizing audiences with his films. This movie turned out to be Glorious by the end of the night.

This Movie stars Brad Pitt as Aldo Raine aka “The Apache” the lead lieutenant for “The Basterds”--- Jewish -American soldiers that are sent to brutally kill, terrorize and Scalp Nazis, they include: Eli Roth as Sergeant Donnie Donowitz who beats Nazis to death with a baseball bat aka “The Bear Jew”; Michael Fassbender as Lieutenant Archie Cox; Til Scweigher as Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz an ex Nazi ---The name Hugo Stiglitz is Tarantino’s homage to a 1970’s Mexican actor; Corporal Wilhelm Wicki played by Gedeon Burkhardt; B.J Novak as Private Smithson Utivich aka “The little one” ---PFC Simon Sakowitz ( Carlos Fidel) PFC Andy Kagan (Paul Rust) PFC. Hirschberg (Samm Levine) and PFC Zimmerman ( Michael Bacall)
Also starring is Melanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus ---a French-Jewish girl who escaped getting killed from the Nazis; Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa a Colonel known as the “Jew Hunter”


This movie was so well done that you can tell Quentin Tarantino took his time planning the script for this movie. The title Inglorious Basterds was inspired by a 1978 movie called “The Inglorious Bastards.” However, this is not a remake of that movie.

The film takes place in Nazi occupied France during World War II, Lt. Aldo Raine builds a unit of Soldiers “The Basterds” and instructs them to kill, torture and bring 100 nazi scalps. If and when the basterds let a prisoner go Aldo Raine carves a swastika on their foreheads so everyone recognizes them even if they take off their uniforms.
< “The Basterds”find out that Hitler will be attending a premiere and plan a way to get into the private screening. It will be hosted in Shosana Dreyfus’ theatre --- the French-Jew runaway who changes her name to Emmanuelle Miniuex. The screening is based on a Nazi soldier showing off how he defeated and killed Jews. He takes a keen interest for Shosanna and will not take no for an answer. Shosanna alongside her lover a Marcel (Jacky Ido) ---thinks this is a perfect opportunity to burn everyone of them attending the premiere and plans the private screening adding a fourth reel telling the Nazis who she really is while the theatre burns down. Meanwhile, “The Basterds” unaware of Shosanna’s existence or intent, get in the premiere but there is a lot of conflict that turn things sour for them. In the end, Shosanna’s plan is carried out. I don’t want to give anything away, but I will tell you that Inglorious Basterds has a lot of dialogue, at times in different languages, (subtitles included) it is also keen on humor and has a good amount of gore, including a bit of racism. Tarantino also depicts the importance of Americans learning a second language he makes fun of it, by putting the basterds in situations where they have to act like they speak Italian but they really have horrible accents and are unable to fool Col. Hans Landa because he speaks Italian as well as French, German and English. Tarantino also incorporates Native American customs by featuring Aldo Raine as part apache. This is why he asks the basterds for Nazi scalps. Overall, this was a well thought out film ---featuring terrific actors. Brad Pitt was very believable as a character and very humorous. Christoph Waltz was horrible and disgusting as a Nazi and this, I say in a good way. He brought a new meaning to the “psychologically disturbed bad guy” role. He was also funny at times. Tarantino also shows that during that time, the Nazis featured their killings as something to be proud off and conducted private screenings, when really it was all propaganda. The racism featured will not be well received by some, as well as the killings. But, this is something that Tarantino couldn’t have prevented in order to stay true to that time full of hatred and racism. It doesn’t only touch on one race or one culture it makes fun of Americans,Jews,Africans,Black,Germans etc. This is a movie that I definitely would buy on DVD and replay it, for the laughs, dialogue and gore. It was pretty interesting and action packed as well.