Quentin Tarantino steps away from his usual self-indulgent - granted great - film-making to give us a masterpiece. Inglourious Basterds is a perfectly scripted fantasy complete with over-the-top characters that are so close to the edge, they border on farcical. But that's the point. In QT's version of World War II, the good guys embodied by a pack of Jewish Nazi killers called 'The Basterds', headed by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), work behind the German lines to scalp Nazis and plot - with the help of a beautiful theater owner Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) - to blow up the entire German High Command at a movie premier in Paris. Much has been writ about the violence in Inglourious Basterds and there is plenty of grisly bits believe me, but the story in all its richness and humour and gorgeous filming, makes it worth the ride. QT has worked magic out of every actor in this film and even he-who-cannot-act, Brad Pitt, gives us a damn decent performance (killing me though it does to admit). Christoph Waltz is the film's star, evoking a performance as SS Officer Col. Hans Landa, that is so cold and odd and brilliant it surely crosses the line and in doing so becomes, iconic. In this reviewer's humble opinion, no director yet has manufactured so perfect an opening act of any film as QT gives us in Chapter One: "Once Upon a Time .......... In Nazi Occupied France (1941)". It is utterly mesmerising, and the finest example of the film-maker's art ever captured.
A film not to be missed warrants my rating of 10 out of 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment