Quentin Tarantino is back but not with a bang. The movie itself is not too bad, just not in the league of his previous work and even his previous outing in Death Proof was kind of disappointing. Inglourious Basterds is set in the middle of World War II when Hitler and his cronies are out to conquer the world and also rid it of every last Jew. The movie begins with Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa) visiting a farm in France and killing an entire family of Jews with only a young girl Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfus) from the family escaping. Years later she runs a cinema in Paris and Daniel Brühl (Pvt. Fredrick Zoller) from the German Army befriends here and plans on a movie premiere at her cinema which will be attended by Martin Wuttke (Adolf Hitler), Sylvester Groth (Joseph Goebbels) and the rest of the top German brass. Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfus) takes it upon herself to burn down the cinema during the premiere show and take revenge and incidentally Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa) too will be attending the premiere being in charge of Hitler’s security.
On a parallel line Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine) and his team of Jewish-American soldiers Eli Roth (Sgt. Donny Donowitz), Til Schweiger (Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz), etc. are involved in guerilla warfare on the Germans in occupied France. There is a fair bit of scalping involved as well as Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine) carving out the swastika on the captured German soldiers foreheads, and Eli Roth (Sgt. Donny Donowitz) also known as "The Bear Jew" battering captured German officers with a baseball bat. Diane Kruger (Bridget von Hammersmark) is a German movie star who is supporting the allies and is also planning an attack on the cinema when the premiere is taking place along with Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine) and his team so that they can defeat the Germans in one fell swoop. The story moves towards its focal point, which is the movie premiere event in the cinema where everyone concerned is planning to assassinate Adolf Hitler and how it all ends up in flames.
Inglourious Basterds has its moments, but they are very few and far too spaced out in an otherwise lengthy movie (153 min). Performance wise almost everybody disappoints starting from Til Schweiger (Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz) in a blink and miss role, Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine) is pretty lame throughout and Diane Kruger (Bridget von Hammersmark) too is very disappointing despite playing a German and her natural self. Inglourious Basterds is not a total waste however with Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfus) shining in parts and Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa) as the evil Jew hunter is pure evil and brilliance. Inglourious Basterds mainly suffers from the canvas it is painted on which is World War II, and instead things might have been better if it had been made as a western. Quentin Tarantino’s trademark action and violence is also missing (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill series) and at the end of it you are left wanting for more. Still as things stand I will take Quentin Tarantino any day over Roland Emmerich which is saying a lot!
