Product Description

Brad Pitt takes no prisoners in Quentin Tarantino’s high-octane WWII revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds. As war rages in Europe, a Nazi-scalping squad of American soldiers, known to their enemy as “The Basterds,” is on a daring mission to take down the leaders of the Third Reich. Bursting with “action, hair-trigger suspense and a machine-gun spray of killer dialogue” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone), Inglourious Basterds is “another Tarantino masterpiece” (Jake Hamilton, CBS-TV)!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-12-15
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 153 minutes

Amazon.com
Although Quentin Tarantino has cherished Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 "macaroni" war flick The Inglorious Bastards for most of his film-geek life, his own Inglourious Basterds is no remake. Instead, as hinted by the Tarantino-esque misspelling, this is a lunatic fantasia of WWII, a brazen re-imagining of both history and the behind-enemy-lines war film subgenre. There's a Dirty Not-Quite-Dozen of mostly Jewish commandos, led by a Tennessee good ol' boy named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who reckons each warrior owes him one hundred Nazi scalps--and he means that literally. Even as Raine's band strikes terror into the Nazi occupiers of France, a diabolically smart and self-assured German officer named Landa (Christoph Waltz) is busy validating his own legend as "The Jew Hunter." Along the way, he wipes out the rural family of a grave young girl (Melanie Laurent) who will reappear years later in Paris, dreaming of vengeance on an epic scale.

Now, this isn't one more big-screen comic book. As the masterly opening sequence reaffirms, Tarantino is a true filmmaker, with a deep respect for the integrity of screen space and the tension that can accumulate in contemplating two men seated at a table having a polite conversation. IB reunites QT with cinematographer Robert Richardson (who shot Kill Bill), and the colors and textures they serve up can be riveting, from the eerie red-hot glow of a tabletop in Adolf Hitler's den, to the creamy swirl of a Parisian pastry in which Landa parks his cigarette. The action has been divided, Pulp Fiction-like, into five chapters, each featuring at least one spellbinding set-piece. It's testimony to the integrity we mentioned that Tarantino can lock in the ferocious suspense of a scene for minutes on end, then explode the situation almost faster than the eye and ear can register, and then take the rest of the sequence to a new, wholly unanticipated level within seconds.

Again, be warned: This is not your "Greatest Generation," Saving Private Ryan WWII. The sadism of Raine and his boys can be as unsavory as the Nazi variety; Tarantino's latest cinematic protégé, Eli (director of Hostel) Roth, is aptly cast as a self-styled "golem" fond of pulping Nazis with a baseball bat. But get past that, and the sometimes disconcerting shifts to another location and another set of characters, and the movie should gather you up like a growing floodtide. Tarantino told the Cannes Film Festival audience that he wanted to show "Adolf Hitler defeated by cinema." Cinema wins. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

Very, VERY entertaining but could have been a classic.
One of the great pleasures of Quentin Tarantino movies is the wonderfully inventive casting that he employs. In PULP FICTION, he revived the career of John Travolta, made Samuel Jackson a star, pushed Bruce Willis into another echelon and even helped get Ving Rhames off to a good start. In JACKIE BROWN, he burnished Pam Grier & Robert Forster's careers. In KILL BILL, he reinvented Uma Thurman and reinvigorated David Carradine. Even in DEATH PROOF, he introduced the world to the amazing stuntwoman Zoe Bell and gave Kurt Russell the kind of part he's missed out on for too long.

And now, wonderfully, in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, he's introduced the American viewer to some stellar European actors, namely Melanie Laurent and particularly Christoph Waltz, now an easy favorite for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Tarantino also frequently tries the patience of his viewers with his rococo dialogue and insistence on constantly reminding us that we're watching a movie. In PULP FICTION, all his "habits" were fresh and new to most viewers (because, really, how many of us had seen RESERVOIR DOGS before we saw FICTION?), but over time, we learned that Tarantino was often just a little too pleased with his own screenwriting and often too pleased with his own directing. In a completely off-the-wall piece like the priceless KILL BILL films, everything worked to form a crazy-quilt whole. In INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, he's too clever for his own good at times.

BASTERDS tells the completely untrue story of how World War II might have ended had a group of bloodthirsty, highly trained American Jews been allowed to infiltrate Nazi occupied France with no mission other than to take Nazi scalps. Oh, and how that mission needed to collide with one fateful night when all the top leadership of Germany attended the gala opening of a new propaganda film held at a movie theatre owned by a beautiful French girl who was actually a Jew who had escaped a massacre that had taken her entire family and now she's bent on revenge at any cost. And of how her goal coincides with that of an undercover British agent who just happens to be a German film scholar and a German double agent who happens to be a movie star.

I know that sounds a little confusing. To Tarantino's credit, the plot as laid out in this 150 minute film is actually easy to follow. In fact, he's put everything into easy-to-digest chapters. It does ask us to believe that every important member of the German government & military would all assemble in a fairly public place at one time...but if you can get past that hurdle, there is much vicarious pleasure to be had in watching WWII reinvented by Tarantino.

By far, the best part of the film is Chapter 1. It features Waltz as SS officer Col. Hans Landa in what is easily the most chilling portrayal of a Nazi since Ralph Fiennes donned the uniform in SCHINDLER'S LIST. Fiennes role (and that entire brilliant movie) were for altogether different purposes. Landa comes off more like a Nazi Hannibal Lecter (without the strange dining preferences)...he's a bit of a lone wolf in his own party. He's feared by all, because he has a wonderful BS detector that helps him root out deception at every turn. In the opening scene, which plays out like a delicate one-act play, Landa comes to a humble French farmhouse and speaks with the owner. We know the owner is hiding Jews beneath his floorboard, and we're pretty sure Landa knows it too. Just how he gets that information, through one of the most tense interrogation scenes you'll ever see, is a joy to behold. You literally find yourself not breathing. I leaned forward in my seat. And yet there is never a raised voice, nor a threatening gesture. The screws are applied through intensity of manner. Waltz instantly makes his character a classic. Tarantino the writer has crafted brilliant dialogue, and Tarantino the director films it all with rare taste and simplicity, and Waltz knocks it out of the park.

The rest of the film is more uneven. While Brad Pitt is a goofy delight as Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds...it's a performance that is more campy than believable. His Basterds, including folks like director Eli Roth and B.J. Novak from TV's "The Office" are fairly interchangeable. And strangely, we look forward to them conducting KILL BILL PT. ONE type mayhem, yet they actually use relatively little screentime showing them in action. There is one short, effective scene of their own brand of interrogation...but mostly we have to take the word of other characters (like Hitler himself) that these guys are wreaking havoc on the Nazis.

And during one jarring moment, we are introduced to one of the basterds with a blast of `70s era Blaxploitation music and a `70s era title card. Why? Yes, it was funny...but it took everyone totally out of the spell the movie was weaving. Just as having Michael Myers, in thick but unconvincing makeup, play a British officer hatching a scheme to blow up a movie theater, was very distracting. Myers accent is impeccable, and he plays the part straight...but he's still unmistakably Myers and many audience members snickered when they recognized him. Very distracting.

It's as though Tarantino doesn't quite believe that he can make a straightforward film and have it be riveting. Too bad...because when he gets out of his own way (as he mostly does in the climactic sequences of the film), INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is a cinematic treat. The gorgeous settings and lovely costumes even gave Tarantino a chance to show off and have it fit the tone of the film...but he still insists on going off the rails. "Hey, this is a Tarantino movie!" he seems to want to shout at us. And this causes him to get in the way of the stunning Melanie Laurant, who plays the vengeful theater owner. I've never seen her before, and she is an entrancing presence, whether in casual slacks or a gorgeous formal red dress. She dominates the final portions of the film.

I had a great time at this film, and I recommend it fairly highly. But with 10 minutes less of the sometimes too clever dialogue and 5 minutes less of Tarantino's showboating, and we might have had a true classic of suspense. See it, though, because the two performances I mentioned are worth the price of admission...heck, the opening scene is worth it.

You Basterd!
Inglourious Basterds is supposedly about Nazi-hunting in World War II, a revenge fantasy where Jewish-American guerillas (or terrorists, as the Nazis point out) are tasked with spreading fear and loathing throughout France. Led by the rustic Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the Basterds have but one task: to each collect 100 Nazi scalps. Please note: this review contains spoilers.

One might think, given the title and the trailers, that this is an action film filled with the occasional machinegun dialogue Quentin Tarantino is famous for. It's quite the opposite: a series of measured vignettes in which the tension is ratcheted up to feverish heights, then explodes in quick, messy violence.

The opening scene sets the stage: Han Landa (Christoph Waltz), AKA "The Jew Hunter," does what he does best in France. As such, he is the nemesis of spies and revolutionaries hiding in plain sight. Landa hunts down Shosanna's (Melanie Laurent) family in a terrifying exchange that culminates in the death of her family. Out of mere whim, ego, or simply being true to his hawk-like nature, Landa lets Shosanna escape. Her survival will have grave repercussions for the German war effort.

These two plots, the Basterds and Shosanna's revenge, eventually intertwine when Hitler and his entourage arrive to view a special showing of a Nazi-propaganda film (Stolz der Nation) in Paris. The film stars Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), a Nazi war hero who singlehandedly killed dozens of enemies from a sniper tower.

Tarantino never just makes a film to tell a story, as evidenced by the obvious digressions from history he takes with Basterds. He films a vibe, an expression -- in doing so, Tarantion comments on the nature of the cinema and our own humanity. And this time, he's aiming his camera at the audience.

You see, this film isn't just about Nazi hunting, or Pitt's funny accent, or the tension between agents who know their social repartee will end in blood; it's about violence in the movies and how we glorify it. And Tarantino is merciless as he judges every person involved with the film guilty:

The producers are guilty: Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) is a simpering suck-up who is far too enamored with the approval of his audience to see how vile his film is.

The actors are guilty: Actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is a duplicitous murderer who shoots an unarmed man in cold blood. Zoller, the star of Stolz der Nation, has no stomach to watch his own murders taking place on the big screen but is only too happy to bully a woman with his affections.

Even the projectionist is guilty: Shosanna is so consumed with her revenge that only in killing a man does she finally see his humanity.

But the most guilty of all is the audience in the theater watching Stolz der Nation. They are shot, burned, and blown to bits at the end. That was the goal, of course - to kill as many Nazis as possible, right? It's just a goal that doesn't seem quite so laudable if you happen to be a member of the audience.

From the images of soldiers dying in the Nazi propaganda film to the graphic scenes of Nazis being scalped, Tarantino holds up a mirror. Are you enjoying this, he asks? Because if so...

You're the basterd.

Tarentino's Masterpiece
Inglourious Basterds is, without a doubt, Tarantino's masterpiece. In fact, not to jinks him or wish him anything but the best in future endeavors, but it is my opinion the odds of him surpassing what he has achieved in this film are slim indeed.

While there have been numerous complaints (even in the most complimentary of reviews) of the many incongruous elements found throughout the film, I have found it is the very disparity of those elements that tie this film into a unifying whole - and precisely what makes it one of the most satisfactory films and satisfying movie experiences of 2009. It is this genre-busting, "what is it?" quality that makes it unique among the major players of this year's top films.

Visually, Tarantino has done nothing to date that quite matches the opulence he achieves here a tailor made look evocative of the "Grand Hollywood Style" of those glorious Technicolor epics of the 50's, 60's and 70's. Like those, every frame of "Inglorious Basterds" seems worthy of being reproduced as "art" in its own right. The color spectrum he employs throughout is rich and vivid in that 1950's fashion - simultaneously lurid yet beautiful.

He elicits performances from his cast that are among the most memorable seen in years. The arc of the Shoshana story - Melanie Laurent in a powerfully searing performance that throbs with a ferocious intensity, anchors the various chapters of the film brilliantly. That performance is matched (and maybe even surpassed) by her chief tormentor, in the guise of Austrian actor Christopher Waltz as Hans Landa of the SS. Waltz, in fact, makes one of the most amazing film debuts in American film history. Chilling doesn't begin to describe his performance here.

Not to be outdone by her costars, Diane Kruger gets to star in one of Tarantino's most brilliantly conceived scenes from any of his films - the basement bar scene. As the unlikely (and hilariously) named Bridget Von Hammersmark, Kruger gives her finest performance since Joyeux Noel and proves herself both as comedian and grand tragedienne.

The Basterds - headed by Brad Pitt - have found some critics singling theirs out to be the weakest element of the movie, but I disagree. Strongly. While the danger of the European war front can be elegantly confusing throughout the entire film (e.g., the almost Andrew Wyeth spareness of the opening chapter; the inviting danger of the basement bar; the opulence of the Cinetheque, etc.) the sheer audacity and brutality of the scenes with the Basterds adds a provocatively American feel to the story's proceedings.

The Basterds are almost a comic chorus line - not quite interchangeable archetypes in a film otherwise populated with specific and memorable characters. Of course several of them (including Mr. Pitt) get to partake in a finale that is (even by Tarentino standards) so over the top it is nothing if not jaw dropping. The entire finale offers one of the most hauntingly beautiful and memorable scenes modern cinema has had to offer in a very long time.

Mr. Tarantino paints all of this onto the broadest canvas possible using a palette that combines the almost unseemly mixtures of film noir, slapstick, crude comedy, art house film, historical fiction, James Bond-style slickness, buddy pic and action flick seemingly without a fleeting concern as to what anybody else thinks. It's a "take no prisoners" style of filmmaking that (clearly) does not play to all tastes and demands that it be taken on its own terms. If one is willing to take that journey with him the rewards are remarkable and immeasurable. A truly remarkable film achievement. Bravo, Signor Tarantino!