Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine, Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa, Eli Roth as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, Michael Fassbender as Lt. Archie Hicox, Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark, Daniel Brühl as Pvt. Fredrick Zoller, Til Schweiger as Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, Gedeon Burkhard as Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki, Jacky Ido as Marcel, B.J. Novak as Pfc. Smithson Utivich, Omar Doom as Pfc. Omar Ulmer, August Diehl as Major Hellstrom, Denis Menochet as Perrier LaPadite, Sylvester Groth as Joseph Goebbels

..."Inglorious" as our local theater decided to display its title on
their marquee, minus the second word. It is terrific cinema.

I don't hesitate to recommend this film to all but the over-squeamish.
Let them never know what they're missing.

I did hesitate to give it ten stars because of my experience of
Tarantino's previous films. In every case, save "Reservoir Dogs," they
have improved with additional watching.

So although I gave it ten stars, I did so reluctantly. It leaves me no
"up" to go to.

Yes Christoph Waltz is the Nazi we've all imagined the worst to be. He
is cultured, sophisticated, suave and most sadistic, the kind of man
who can make a glass of milk a threat and who puts out his cigarette
abruptly in a strudel, grinding it into the whipped cream as if he were
grinding his heel into a victim.

To understand Tarantino's films, you need only have a sense of
dialogue, color and pacing. The colors are as bright as necessary and
when necessary, brighter yet. In the French farmhouse of the opening
scene, they are muted and dark, but excessively so. Outside a brilliant
sun is shining, but in the one room of the house, everything is bathed
in shadows and black.

It is a brilliant setting for an interrogation by Waltz, as the "Jew
Hunter" of the SS, who dangles his host French farmer over the
precipice of revealing what he cannot reveal numerous times, then pulls
him back with obsequious lines of friendship and understanding.

A second sadistic German, well-played by August Diehl, later functions
as important actor in the final plot twist. Diehl's Nazi Major, who has
an ear for German accents, is almost as good as Waltz....almost.

Film classes will study much from this movie. They should look lovingly
at the superb pacing. Tarantino knows just how long to draw out a
scene, building suspense in the manner of Hitchcock, then at just the
breaking point, suddenly coming to a resolution.

For color, look for a final shot at a French Theater, where its
secretly Jewish proprietor is staging a surprise for the upper reaches
of Nazi leadership.

We see her, played by Melanie Laurent, awaiting the hated German
dignataries who will arrive for a film preview of the latest Deutsch
film masterpiece, a propaganda piece about a German hero and his
dubious accomplishments.

Laurent is framed on a balcony, reflected in the glass mirrors of the
gorgeous theater, her red lips and low cut dress reflecting everywhere
the intensity of her designs on her guests. It is a single shot that
would be worth an entire film.

There are thankfully many more such images, many more paced scenes of
exquisite dialog and suspense.

In short, see it. I'm sure you'll see it again and again.