Review: “Inglorious Basterds”

As always Spoiler Alert!

I actually really enjoyed this movie even though I did not think I would. I am not a huge Brad Pitt fan or a Quentin Tarantino fan but this movie defied my expectations. There was not too much gore and I liked the way it was broken up into different chapters. There were of course moments I was completely confused but it all came together at the end and historical fiction component of the movie made it really interesting to me. The movie was also mostly in subtitles yet I did not notice for most of the film, I forgot that I was reading their words since I was so into the rest of the movie and the little nuances that were placed in each scene.

I think my favorite character was Shoshanna. Her performance in the restaurant with Landa was amazing. She was holding it together but you could tell that she was fighting to remain in control of herself. One slip and she could have given herself away. I found myself wondering how she ended up with that cinema and loved that fact that she ended the war basically single-handedly, though the Basterds certainly did help.I was also greatly surprised by her scene with the actor/soldier in the projector room, I never saw the shootout coming and I was pained she did not get to see her plan play out. Christoph Waltz deserves every award he has so far won this season. He plays the character of Landa with a little bit of crazy and you could see that in his eyes. He knew he was in control and you got the feeling that he knew what his plan was the whole time, but the crazy was there and he played it well. The way he could be calm and collected one minute commanding people with a low, calm, almost flirtatious voice and the next minute be strangling someone with his bare hands was incredible, it takes a truly gifted actor to play that so well.

The rest of the cast was very good. Brad Pitt was there more for comic relief than anything else though, with his wildy awful accent but I enjoyed the team he put together, Eli Roth and BJ Novak in particular. They were funny and brought a sense of whimsy to a film that was otherwise about scalping, shooting and killing people. So overall a great movie!