'Inglourious Basterds' review

Brad Pitt (Credit: Francois Duhamel/Weinstein Co.)

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American Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) recruits a team of badass Jewish soldiers to hunt and kill Nazis using guerilla warfare. His efforts strike fear into the Third Reich and inspire aggressive plans within the British government involving two key undercover operatives: German movie star Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) and British soldier/film critic Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender). Their carefully orchestrated approach runs parallel to the actions of cunning, self-serving Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and secretly Jewish cinema owner Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), who is set to host  Hitler himself at a movie premiere and has her own ambitions to vengeance.

The buzz: Quentin Tarantino’s latest piece of pulp fiction mixes larger than life original characters with a few carefully selected historical figures for a bloody bold slice of alternate history. Tarantino has been working on the project on and off for a decade, borrowing a title and (very) loose inspiration from the 1978 Italian-produced “Dirty Dozen” knockoff “Inglorious Bastards.” The internationally-flavored “Basterds” premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival and won a best actor prize for breakout star Waltz.

The verdict: 15 years after “Pulp Fiction” rocked the movie world, Tarantino remains a filmmaking maverick intent on subverting expectations. “Basterds” unfolds in a series of five chapters, each packing enough suspense, action and dry humor for several movies, elevated by a superb ensemble cast and Tarantino’s trademark quirky, frequently tangential, dialogue. Despite Pitt’s superstar status and the film’s own title, the basterd pack isn’t the primary focus here. The movie only stays still when it finds an interesting bit of conversation, otherwise operating in perpetual motion, constantly shifting perspectives and introducing important new characters deep into its running time. If the traditional approach would be watching the basterds carry out a mission (à la “Valkyrie,” “Defiance” and other recent WWII tales), Tarantino prefers to imagine how these renegades would inspire or interact with a razor-sharp villain like Landa, a glamorous adventuress like Von Hammersmark or an average person in extraordinary circumstances like Shosanna. “Basterds” is as entertaining as it is audacious, a film that showcases Tarantino in top form and boasts a multitude of characters who could easily carry a movie of their own (special mention should also be made of Daniel Brühl as a Nazi-hero-turned-movie-star and Til Schweiger as a German rebel). And about that ending…well, you’ll just have to see it for yourself.

Did you know? The original plan called for even more recognizable faces in the cast: Simon Pegg and Adam Sandler had to pass on the respective roles of Hicox and a key basterd due to scheduling conflicts, while Leonardo DiCaprio was originally offered the role of Landa.

Check out our video coverage of the "Inglourious Basterds" premiere

Video review: Watch a very different take on 'Inglourious Basterds'

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