Inglourious Basterds

by Robbo

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Posted on 17 January 2022

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Rating -

Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino,

The film tells an alternate history of two plots to assassinate the Nazi German leadership that intertwine at the end.

The film opens in 1941 with SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa (Waltz) interrogating French farmer Perrier LaPadite as to the whereabouts of the Dreyfuses, a Jewish family who lived in the area and are unaccounted for.

Under threats, the farmer admits to hiding the family under the house and the German soldiers shoot the family through the floorboards except Shosanna (Laurent), the Dreyfus’ daughter, escapes.

Three years later, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt) recruits Jewish-American soldiers to the Basterds, a commando unit formed to instil fear among Nazis by killing and scalping them behind enemy lines.

In Paris, Shosanna Dreyfus is in hiding, operating a cinema under the name Emmanuelle Mimieux where she meets Fredrick Zoller (Brühl), a German sniper famed for killing 250 Allied soldiers in a battle. Zoller stars in a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation’s Pride).

Infatuated with Shosanna, Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels to hold the premiere at her cinema. Landa, the head of security for the premiere, interrogates Shosanna, who manages to maintain her cover and plots to set the cinema ablaze during the premiere, killing the Nazi leaders in attendance.

Meanwhile, British Commando Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Fassbender) is recruited to lead a British attack on the premiere along with the Basterds.

Inglourious Basterds just proves again why Tarantino is the master of dialogue, just the opening 20 minutes alone demonstrate this.

Although the stellar cast gives great performances I have to single out Christoph Waltz for his Oscar winning performance as the menacing, passive/aggressive Hans Landa who is very reminiscent of a snake who tries to lure you in before it strikes.

Inglourious Basterds is a big, bold, audacious, violent, unrestrained, thrill ride and is thoroughly entertaining.

As with many films there will be people who love it and people who hate it, but for me I have to say I love it.

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