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Quentin Tarantino's long-gestating Inglourious Basterds had seemed destined to never see the light of day given how long it had taken for Tarantino to get round to actually filming the damn thing. Then, at last year's Cannes Film Festival, he surprised everyone by saying he'd be back in a year's time with Basterds to screen, but few believed him. Well, he managed it - after an abnormally tortuous birth, the actual period from start of production to release has been unusually (and admirably) brief. The rush meant that Tarantino continued editorial tweaking after its first showing. The initial Cannes reaction was split, but the general consensus in the press has been positive. After apparently starting to believe his own hype - Kill Bill was ridiculously overlong and Death Proof stuttering and self-indulgent, although the director's true talent still managed to shine through in both - has Tarantino returned to winning ways?
Without hesitation, the answer is yes. But, typically, this is not the film we had been expecting, given the suggestions of a Dirty Dozen-esque World War 2 romp; it doesn't even share the spelling, never mind the plot, of 1978's Inglorious Bastards. The Basterds themselves - a group of American Jews recruited by Brad Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine for a mission to scalp 100 Nazis each - receive surprisingly little screen time and get to do very little rampaging. The tagline, very reminscent of Kill Bill's ("A Roaring Rampage of Revenge"), as well as the trailer, are therefore rather misleading. This is mainly the story of Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish girl whose family, hiding in a farmhouse, is butchered by the Germans in the film's opening chapter, and who, some time later, plans to kill the whole Third Reich in one fell swoop while they attend a film premiere in Paris.
Laurent, surely unknown to most non-French speakers, is a great find. Tarantino continues his propensity for writing meaty parts for women and Laurent, who probably receives more screen time than headlining star Pitt, is radiant in the role. Meanwhile, the Nazi hit squad who murder her family is led by the demonic SS Colonel Hans Landa, played with horrifically human menace by Christoph Waltz, who has deservedly been receiving most of the acting plaudits. Waltz is both chilling and hilarious, and is one of the reasons Basterds warrants categorisation - as much as Tarantino's output can be categorised - as a comedy as well as a wartime thriller. Pitt also gets some great lines, and if he seems a bit self-conscious in the role, he's always watchable and funny. His attempt to speak Italian is certainly worth waiting for. That said, the funniest joke comes in the legal disclaimer in the end credits: "This film is based on actual events". In fact, the film doesn't so much ignore history as cave its face in with a baseball bat.
Tarantino's propensity for giving his characters the gift of the gab, reflecting the personality of the director himself, is definitely back in full force again, but unlike in Kill Bill Vol. 2, Death Proof, and even occasions in Pulp Fiction, the conversations never outstay their welcome. The key factor is suspense. There are many long dialogue exchanges, but all of them have an undercurrent of danger or threat, often thanks to Waltz's presence. Two of the five chapters basically comprise one long conversation, including the chapter that starts the film - which is probably the high point of the whole running time, as Landa, by words alone, slowly closes in on discovering the Dreyfus family hidden under a farmer's floorboards. The chapter's title, "Once Upon a Time... In Nazi-Occupied France", indicates the tone that Tarantino's going for: Sergio Leone, with a personal twist (there's a lot of Ennio Morricone on the soundtrack).
There are some moments so brash that only QT could even think of getting away with them. At a couple of points, for example, Tarantino brazenly sidesteps potentially awkward exposition by having a disembodied Samuel L. Jackson bluntly narrate directly to the audience. Tarantino's love for and encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema is also unmistakable; even in his first period film he can't resist including a conversation about German directors, and as already mentioned the plot centres around a cinema. Inglourious Basterds, therefore, could only have been made by Quentin Tarantino, but this time that's a compliment.
The summary
Certainly not the all-out action film that may have been expected, but an idiosyncratic joy nevertheless. Inglourious Basterds is easily Tarantino's best since Jackie Brown.
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