Inglourious Basterds Review (8-22-09)

I loved the movie, there was tension from the first scene up until the last. To me it never felt boring at all, but I think it’s a lot more enjoyable if you somewhat know the languages. Being from Switzerland, I speak all the spoken languages in this movie and the dialogue was great in every one of them (especially German, with Landa being the indisputable highlight).

I went in not expecting much, seeing how most of the (American) reviews had not been overly positive but I was delightfully surprised if not to say blown away by this movie.

Man, this film was awesome! First I was afraid I could be bored by very drawn out, tedious scenes. But I found the whole film thrilling and tense. I think it really improves the film experience a lot if you know the languages. Fortunately I know English and German.
To all you French and Germans who read this site, I would like to recommend watching this film in the original version. If you know enough English to enjoy Spoony’s videos, I guess you can understand the English spoken in this film just as much. I am glad I decided to watch this film in the original version, because I think it is kind of awkward if the Americans and the English speak German in this film.

It was funny how I knew a lot of the German actors who are quite famous in Germany and there were some German references. After a while in the tavern scene I thought I was watching a German film. It is funny when I consider most Americans will not notice that.
However I did not know Christoph Waltz yet and surprisingly he outshines all the other more famous German actors in this film.

Well Spoony, you’ve convinced me to go watch it :-)

I like QT films, though I think the quality of his films has been declining a bit with each film (Jackie Brown being an exception, I couldn’t quite get into that one… though a lesser Tarantino still kicks the butt of a lot of other films), so I’ve been waiting for him to actually do something a bit different. I liked Robocop and Starship Troopers too, so if it really has that kind of ironic/cynic approach, chances are I might like it. Heh, it laughs at the audience, does it? Hey, the audience deserves to be laughed at. I expect a lot of popcorn-munching teens to be quite disappointed with this flick. Yeah, it’s probably a bit snobbish, but they should get the finger every once in a while.

As for subs: I agree with the above post. I’m from Belgium, and we’re such a small country with both a Dutch and a French speaking part so most films here are subbed in both languages (one line for each). We’re quite used to reading subtitles, so the transition to other languages isn’t that hard on us. I’ve heard Americans saying that it is tedious to have to read during a film. I don’t get that. Do these people never pick up any kind of book (even comics)? Reading stuff in your native language should be kind of an automatic thing. (This has little to do with understanding the language spoken in the film: subtitles on Asian flicks aren’t that much harder on me then English flicks.) It really doesn’t require that much effort at all. The few times I had to watch something in a dubbed version, I cringed at how stupid most of it sounded. And sometimes it even looks like nobody even bothered to even try and synch up the audio and video. I see I kinda made most of this post about subtitling, but this really seams to be a big deal for Americans. Michael Haneke wouldn’t have made that shot-per-shot remake of Funny Games if it wasn’t.

I saw IG Sunday night and I consider myself a huge QT fan. Now this movie was entertaining, and well done, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. But, there’s that BUT, it did seem like I saw this before, by QT

Spoilers in case you didn’t see it follow

The revenge film we had with Kill Bill, and so the story of Shoshanna wasn’t anything new.
The font used for the movie was Pulp Fiction and also done before.

The requirement to have Sam Jackson as a narrator was not good, and really takes you out of a movie that requires full attention to begin with. Out of place.

In fact, even Harvey Keitel’s voice acting spot was very out of place for myself, since he was supposedly playing a high ranking general and I could only picture the Wolf, all slick and shit.

The music seemed really wacky to me, like the Kill Bill wetsern style, with a hint of Italian, also was done before. It wasn’t terribly out of place, except for that 1981 David Bowie song, which was really worse then hallelujah in Watchmen.

Oh and the scenes where tension is shown with the high pitch music, also from Kill Bill.

The opening chapter with the french dairy farmer & Landa was (for me) the best scene in the movie. Just because the trailer didn’t show any of it. It’s intense, but not drawn out like the basement mexican standoff scene. That particular scene was the Holy Grail’s “get on with it” scene for me. But the acting between Landa & the Frenchman was amazing.

The Basterds chapter was ok, but most of it was in the trailer, so not a lot to add.

The Jewish girl’s and the sniper’s chapter started slow but got better when they have this seemingly nobody German private who is actually a famous dude, the acting from Shoshanna was amazing as well.

The basement standoff seemed overly long for the payoff – to have the British mission needing last second changes giving the Basterds charge of operation Kino. While it wasn’t boring, you could see where it was going, so it seemed overly drawn out.

The final chapter was good, intense and again good play between Landa & Raine, yet seemed a bit anticimate. The reason was because what they ultimately did to the Landa was done earlier in the movie. It reminded me of Pulp Fiction in the Sam Jackson ezekiel speech. The first time you hear it you get a payoff of violence. The second time you hear it you kind of expect that same result but it doesn’t happen. Here I was expecting a different result, yet it didn’t come. The ending was not as tense just because there were two plots to kill Hitler and no seemingly escape unless Landa phones it in, and even tha was blocked by Shoshanna’s plan. You knew no one was getting out of the theatre.

Overall I am really pointing out the flaws as I saw, but I really enjoyed the movie. Some good stuff…

The tension was high through most of the movie. Landa was an amazing villain, and his coyness/questioning was always scarey due to the payoffs of them.

I really thought the acting was good.

The movie out and out entertained me, I never checked the time, and I kept interest for the whole thing AND I will get the DVD and watch it numerous times.

I shit.
LANDA i mean.

I really liked this movie. To be honest, I did go in expecting a lot of violence, just because of his previous movies. But that didn’t turn me off. The violence I felt (mainly the first scene in the beginning) really made a point and was quite brutal despite not really seeing anything graphic. I was disappointed at the lack of basterds in the movie but after watching your review of it, I almost wonder if he did that on purpose.

I will list some of my very few cons first, but let it be clear that not only was I satisfied leaving the theater, but I was also wondering how long until the unavoidable Director’s cut DVD will take to be released so I can buy it. This, Watchmen Ultimate, Star Trek, and District 9 are going to chew up a chunk of my DVD shelf space.

Spoilers ahead!

I was a bit disappointed by the lack of screen time the “Basterds” were given, in retrospect wanting to see more of them just shows how entertaining their presence was. The basement shoot out scene was a bit too fast for comprehension for a first time viewer. It happens so fast you are left wishing you had a remote with a rewind , and slow down function. I would kind of compare it to ripping a band off extremely quickly to minimize the pain, but I still would have preferred a little more time to identify who killed who, how, etc…. Finally I remember watching an interview with the cast where Eli Roth was talking about the background of “The bear Jew”, and he mentioned that the bat he used was signed by many of his Jewish neighbors in NYC. I would have loved to see that scene(if it was filmed) simply because it would have added a bit more humanity, and appreciation from the audience for their actions. However, I thought it was obvious that QT did not want anyone taking the film seriously to the point of making it more disturbing then over the top.

There is really too many things I liked to list them all, so I will try to mention some of the more obscure reasons. I can’t believe I am saying this but Mike Myers actually worked for me. I was concerned at first but after seeing his cartoon like nature I immediately understood. I loved to hate the “Jew Hunter”, talk about a great villainous performance. After the scene of his introduction, tension would mount with each of his on screen appearances. I am really getting irked by the people complaining about this not feeling like a QT movie. The film was made partly as a homage to old war movies, so anyone who knew about the film should have known this wouldn’t be his typical work. He was complimenting the filming styles of past directors with his own personal twists. If he was constantly staying predictable his popularity would have faded years ago.

Finally the fate of Hitler scene was fucking awesome. I was almost embarrassed at one point when Hitler’s face turns into Swiss cheese. The epicness made me laugh out loud, then half the audience gave me a really evil look, while my Dad turned to me and said “You are sick”. I can’t be the only one who got a kick out of his the fate he truly deserved.

It’s overall a good movie–don’t get me wrong–but I can’t overlook that. I don’t know about you, but hypocrites and douchebags piss me off to no end.

You know what…I’m going to take that back. It’s a great movie, because the end more than makes up for the douchey characters.

Sorry for the double post but I just remembered something I thought was mentionable, but forgot to include it on a previous post. The complaints about the subtitles is really irritating. Yes for an American made movie there was a good deal of subtitling, but nowhere near enough that I can take criticisms of it seriously. In my opinion it was used in a manner to contribute to the “being out of the states” atmosphere, and was very efficient.I wasn’t sure how to take the “Being your home may I ask that we switch to English since I have exhausted my French” technique, but in retrospect I now think it was effective almost to perfection. I hope no one commenting here takes this as a personal insult, but that particular criticism makes me believe the person is extremely lazy if a bit of reading actually is found tedious..

That’s a BINGO!

@Barabbas

I am from Germany and friends told me that. Well people here are that stupid and no one cares about your age, they just want your money :D
Well I had WW2 also in school, but very late. About 10th grade (?)
People here are really so stupid. :D

Good review, glad you’ve taken to not eating your dinner during the review re:Dark Knight.

The way you felt when you saw this film, Spoony, is the way I felt when I saw Twelve Monkeys.
I will definitely see this movie. Thanks for the review!

(German not a problem, as a Swede I understand alot of it anyway. OH AND WE HAVE POLAR BEARS OF COURSE).

*Rolls eyes*

If you want to see a movie which are full length bastards only, see Inglorious Bastards from the 70ies. :) I didn’t even know a new movie existed, but i watched the old one recently. However, as far as character depth is conserned, the old movie is lacking too.

And hey, your judgement of Europeans being able to speak at least 2 languages, though pretty much correct, it applies to the French the least of all. It’s usually somewhere between very basic and very awful, sometimes up to fairly correct but tainted by an dreadful accent. There must be something wrong with their education system and old beliefs. Also i think there’s no relationship between distance to UK and English knowledge, as we don’t really learn it to go to the UK, but because it’s the communication language of international business and science.

I went back and forth on this film due to my own inexperience with Tarantino style movies.

I think I went in expecting that deep characterization after the first scene went on and then watched 5 newly established characters gunned down in a tavern. :P It was a three prong attack going from the commercial advertisements, the first scene or so and then the rest of the movie.

hated it..
brad pitt acted bad
til schweiger acted bad as usual
all other actors acted bad..
^^

This was a strange film, but in the end I think I really enjoyed it. The subtitling doesn’t bother me in the slightest, I’m more than used to watching foreign films with subtitles, I don’t think it detracts from the experience. But I found this movie to be quite clever and thought provoking. I thought the acting was good, and as you mentioned in the review, myself and my friends were impressed with the SS Officer. My French friend was impressed at how perfect his English and French were, along with the other languages he spoke in the film.

I particularly enjoyed how it switched from the tension of the “talking over the table” scenes, to the scenes involving the Basterds, which often involved the small bursts of violence with some tongue-in-cheek humour. It was strange but I thought it worked well. Either way, I enjoyed the movie and I’d recommend it. And completely agree with TTL.

This is actually something that QT does a lot, and it never looses the effect. when you watch a QT movie you never know quite what to expect…any of the characters, no matter how well established, can die at any moment.

It's what makes his flicks so much fun to watch!

i see alot of your points spoony and your right, but i personally liked this film alot. then again, as a jewish person, i am always biaed towards films about “killin' natzees”

Not that anyone will see or care about my opinion…but I saw this movie for the first time about three weeks ago, and I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not. The pacing in the movie was really awkward to me, and I never really settled into the movie. Overall, I liked the acting, though I think Brad Pitt went too far with his accent, but was too far over the top. I get, that they all had that aspect, but you can still carry it too far.

Christoph Waltz, was awesome however. Landa, was by far the most effective character in the movie, and his scenes were all excellent.

If you enjoy blood, gore, go see it.

Sure it is a classic story of (really really bad guy people who enter the theaters are supposed to hate) vs opposing forces, i wasn't sure i liked it at first either similar to arson55 but since then i have re-imagined it in another way.

Just do me a favor, imagine this movie as one very fucked up version of star wars, go ahead do it, the theater is the death star, hitler is vader (p.s. you don't see the ending coming, its one of those endings that seem to come the fuck out of nowhere, really excellent, even the ending you didn't expect was totally off-base, because it fucking goes into another universe on your ass).

Overall i think people should see this movie, original it isn't but you will be entertained nonetheless.

I am eternally indebted to Tarentino for bringing Hero to our shores. That said, I don’t think I’ve actually liked any of his own movies. I agree with you, Spoony, they didn’t give us nearly enough of the Basterds. That bit with the “Bear-Jew”? The entire movie should have been that.