Tarantino is one of those directors that really seems dedicated to his ideas and often sticks to them regardless of how long it takes to get them released. Unlike other directors that are forced to retire concepts or ones that flat-out abandoned projects, Tarantino likes to flesh out his ideas and create something interesting out of them. He feels like a man who is obsessed with various levels of pop culture especially in regard to film. All his movies share a sense of awareness in regard to its genre, style and atmosphere and it shows heavy amounts of tongue-and-cheek poking, but also legitimate respect for whatever genre or time period he’s focusing on. One of his pieces of work, Inglorious Basterds, ties into both these themes; it was a script that he held onto for over a decade and one that feels like a homage to war films, propaganda films, revenge stories, spaghetti westerns, etc. Above all that, it was yet another instance where Tarantino produces a movie that is critically and publicly loved by many. Set during the time of the Third Reich, a young French Jewish cinema proprietor named Shosanna (played by Melanie Laurent) is passively threatened into holding a premier night for one of Joseph Goebbels’s new films. She also finds out that Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz) will also be attending, the man known as ‘’The Jew Hunter’’ who is solely responsible for killing her whole family in front of her. Seeing her window of opportunity, she plans to lock in every Nazi within the cinema and burn them down while watching. By sheer luck, a military plot is undergoing at the same time to assassinate Hitler at this event, with the help of the Inglourious Basterds, a group of Americans whose sole purpose is to find and kill Nazis. Much like many other Tarantino properties, this movie has a lot of great scenes fitted with fun actors and entertaining moments.

The title of the movie was inspired by the 1978 war film, The Inglorious Bastards, made by Italian director Enzo G. Castellari, which in itself is a remake of 1967 American film, The Dirty Dozen. It’s his first attempt at altering real life involving the destruction of the Nazi regime and Hitler. With the movies and incidences that its taking from are war-heavy and focus a lot on the Americana side of the war, the film goes out of its way to create a movie that feels like it encompasses that period of time. With Tarantino’s personality being a kind of over-the-top that exceeds at being that slight amount of insane while also mocking, a period as dark as the Nazi regime is prime for his insanity. While its not taken to a point where it shies away from touchy subjects, it feels like an exaggeration of that time period where the extreme emotions that are felt are magnified to be almost comical level on the Nazi side. The story behind the Jewish girl planning to burn the Nazi’s down within her own cinema is a pretty engaging focus point; it has good set-up with the opening, the character is interesting and worth following, the plan is actually a good idea and fun to see play out, and despite its finish being a bit anti-climactic and one that doesn’t tie back to the villain, it is satisfying to watch because of that connectable human element. One of the biggest issues that this film has unfortunately is (strangely enough) the Inglourious Basterds. Everything revolving around their plans, their roles, their characteristics, even their thematic style is unfitting and annoying to watch. Ironically enough, Tarantino’s familiar style of using themed music, dramatic edits, emphasized text, and overly goofy atmosphere is exactly what doesn’t work about this movie; it does such a great job at working within this original story of revenge that his usual tropes don’t fit within the same universe that its set up. Unfortunately, all of his style is reserved for the Inglourious Basterds’ sections, making it easily the worst part of the movie.

The cast of a Tarantino flick is usually really good and here, despite the amount of characters being much smaller than usual, the choices are still appropriate choice for the kind of movie that they’re making and each actor feels like they were placed in a correct role. One of the best performance in this movie is Christoph Waltz as the villain; his calm sinister presence masking his obviously malicious intent is performed beautifully crazy by Waltz. He manages to create an instantly memorable character by capturing that level of restraint that is required for a villain of his stance; he’s got some fantastically threatening scenes but is also capable of being over-the-top and funny at the same time. He’s a great bad guy and one of the best parts of this movie despite how little he does in the overall scheme. Melanie Laurent is also really good as the cinema owner; she has an easily identifiable backstory, a clear reason to hate the Nazis, is featured in a lot of great suspenseful scenes and holds her own as an effective actresses. While these two are the heavy hitters of the film, side performances like Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger are pretty entertaining as well. Again, everything goes downhill as soon as the Inglourious Basterds get on screen. Every single person in that group is hideously unlikable and bland; Brad Pitt is stuck with an abnormally annoying accent that turns him into a cartoon so simplistic and shallow that he barely feels like a stereotype. None of them have good backstories, none of them are even slightly likeable, their style of humor is horribly unlikable and doesn’t fit within the movie’s tone, they steal scenes that could be dedicated to the actual good characters of the movie, and instead of being a commentary on the negativity of Americana and the excessive violence of army soldiers, no subtly or intelligence is placed within their parts. Despite being acted fine, the Inglourious Basterds ruin this movie.

From a technical level, the movie isn’t as colorful or expressive as a typical Tarantino movie is, but it’s a move that proves to be far more beneficial in the long run. The movie’s style still has that element of spice and energy but feels grounded enough to the point where the usual trope of Tarantino don’t work. From a camera-work perspective, there’s some nicely composed shots that aren’t even try to show-off but do their roles so effectively that it allows the scenes to flow much smoother. A lot of scenes in this movie don’t involve much motion or action, but the fast edits and steady shots allow the scene to be precise and in-your-face without being distracting, its an extension of his style without going too overboard. The opening scene of the movie is a clear indication of this, it’s a perfectly done scene; the acting is perfect, the pace is perfect, the music is perfect, the dialogue is perfect, and (of course) the cinematography is perfect. The music is also an equal half and half between the right amount of Tarantino and too much of Tarantino; sometimes the score is a fun overly dramatic piece that is goofy enough without being too distracting, but any retro songs don’t fit in this movie at all.

Inglourious Basterds’ strangest issue is that anything revolving around them is easily the worst part of the movie. They aren’t engaging to watch, all of them are horribly unlikable, the acting is fair but over-the-top, the writing doesn’t feel as quick and entertaining, and it feels like a complete tone-change from what the rest of the movie set-up. With that said, the movie around that element is a lot of fun. Its presented very effective, its acted well, the writing gets pretty good in moments, the cinematography is artistic yet not overblown, the tone is far more defined and less ridiculous, and it’s a fantasy that may not work for the people within the era, but touches back to a moment filled with tons of regret and one that works pretty well under the wing of Tarantino. Overall a solid movie, but when your Nazi-killing team isn’t automatically likeable, it seems only fitting that they be called ”the inglorious bastards”.