Accented Fun

I am not a big Quentin Tarantino fan, yet I rushed to The Rave to see Inglourious Basterds, the director's playfully mispelled sixth movie. I had only seen the preview once, but it looked like a fun film, and that's pretty much all the excuse I need to head over to the movies.

IB is an alternate-history movie in which a bunch of Jewish American soldiers are sent, under Lieutenant Aldo Raine's charismatic command, to kill Nazis over to Europe. This is all Tarantino needs to sell his movie, but it's so much more than just that. As it turns out, the Basterds have a smaller part in the film than I was anticipating, and the various interlocking stories in IB showcase a handful of other very interesting characters such as Shosanna (played by Melanie Laurent) and Colonel Hans Landa (no relation to Alfredo). Without spoiling anything, I'll say that these characters' fates are intertwined, and it is a lot of fun to watch them onscreen, especially Landa, who, as portrayed by Christoph Waltz, very much steals the show.

Something else I really enjoyed was Brad Pitt's riotous accent, and the wealth of languages spoken in the movie was another delightful surprise. There are very long segments of the movie in French and German, and there's even some Italian thrown in along with the expected English with different accents. However, the use of all these languages is not gratuitous, and it proves to be a key element more than once.

I thought the movie was very well acted and directed, and Tarantino's trademark witty dialogue is everywhere in IB. One of my favorite scenes, the tavern, showcases Tarantino's strengths as a dialogue writer, and had the scene been even twice as long as it already was, I would have enjoyed it all the same.

Along with the humor, there was also Tarantino's other trademark --gruesome violence. Except for a couple of longer, brutal scenes, though, the violence was limited to a few (quite vicious) flashes here and there, and maybe it was because I was expecting a lot more blood, but there seemed to be less violence than I was expecting. (Especially for a war movie.) On the other hand, there was way more tension than I anticipated, and I spent most of movie on the edge of my seat almost holding my breath.

So, was Inglourious Basterds worth the admission price? Absolutely. Should you guys go see it as soon as you get a chance? Definitely.