“You see, we’re in the business of killin’ Nazis, and boy, business is boomin’.“
What’s it all about? Two assassination plots against the Nazi political leadership. The first is planned by Shosanna Dreyfus, a young French Jewish woman (Mélanie Laurent) whose family was murdered by Col. Hans Lando (Christoph Waltz). The second assassination plot is by a team of Jewish Allied soldiers called “The Inglourious Basterds” and led by the American Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Basically, it’s just slaughtering Nazis.
I think Quentin finally found the one group of people that an audience wouldn’t crucify him for slaughtering. You know he’s been waiting for this. He tried gangsters (“Pulp Fiction”), thieves (“Reservoir Dogs”) and assassins (“Kill Bill”), but somehow I still cringed at all that blood and felt terrible when half of Lucy Liu’s head got sliced off. I know that some morning, somewhere, Quentin laid in bed and thought about which subset of humanity was next on the chopping block. Vampires? Lawyers? Teenagers? And then it came to him like a bolt of lightning: Nazis. And irony of ironies? Quentin decided to burn them alive.
This movie was a little ridiculous in the amount of deaths that were required to sustain some semblance of entertainment. Out of the five parts the film was divided into, only two of them manage to be on the same level of Tarantino’s previous work: “Once Upon A Time… In Nazi-Occupied France” and “A German Night in Paris”. The reason these two parts sneak by? Col Hans Lander (Christoph Waltz) and Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent). If I would suggest a rewrite for the film, I would remove (or lessen) the whole “Inglourious Basterds” subplot with Brad Pitt, Eli Roth and Diane Krüger, and turn it into a revenge story with Waltz and Laurent. I guess that’s leaning a little close to Bill and The Bride in “Kill Bill” but, in all honesty, it was their presence in the film that kept me interested. Yes, Pitt was good for a laugh — just wait for his “Italian” — and Roth was a little intimidating with his baseball bat. Their characters felt like cameos though, and I just wanted to get back to Shosanna. (As aside note, B.J. Novak was hilarious in the last scene — but I kept on waiting for him, with that deer-in-headlights stare of his, to complain about and/or make out with Kelly Kapoor.)
Favourite Scene: I was frozen in my seat while watching the opening scene with Col. Hans Landa and the dairy farmer, Perrier. The acting in the film was spectacular — all that withholding, all that tension. It reminded me of the coin toss scene with Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”. It’s no wonder Christoph Waltz received a Golden Globe Sunday night for his portrayal of Hans, “The Jew Hunter”. This scene also establishes Col. Hans Landa and Shosanna as the driving forces of the film, and serves as an excellent background for their respective stories.
Notes: Directed by Quentin Tarantino; Produced by Lawrence Bender; Written by Quentin Tarantino; Starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Krüger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Mélanie Laurent; Cinematography by Robert Richardson; Editing by Sally Menke.
Sasha James, otherwise known as The Final Girl Project, is a twenty-something Torontonian with an unhealthy amount of her week reserved for film and television. She also moonlights as The Doctor's companion on Saturdays. 
“My name is Lev and I approve this review.”
In all seriousness, I completely agree that any scene with the characters Shosanna Dreyfus and/or Col Hans Lander stole the show. The suspense built by those scenes are tremendous, compared to the ridiculous brutality of the “Inglorious Basterds,” who actually succeeded in coming off worse than the Nazis. The one scene you don’t mention is the amazing Basement scene. It was the one scene that really enthralled me in the Basterds branch of the story. Amazing suspense scene that toys with the viewer.
I really liked certain parts of the movie, but overall a major disappointment. Try again, Quentin.
Christopher Waltz was excellent! He seems like he would be a very interesting person in real life. I thought the film was well-acted on the whole… but the story was a little too simplistic for me. I also liked Shoshanna and the Colonel’s scenes and the basement shoot out scenes with Diane Kruger. There needed to be more material between those big events to add more depth and substance. I wouldn’t have minded if the film was twice as long for this to happen.
Excellent review! This movie felt like multiple movies spliced awkwardly together. I liked the separate parts, but it doesn’t work very well as a whole. I would have loved a tensely plotted revenge drama focusing on the Landa/Shoshana story and another lighter and more violent film about the Basterds.
I think we got the same thing out of the movie, Alex. I’m surprised at how many people are disagreeing with me on Twitter.