Inglourious Basterds

It started while I was watching the very last scene of DEATH PROOF, writer/director Quentin Tarantino's previous film. Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) hobbles out of his hot rod after nearly running three women off the road in a deadly chase. The women are pissed, to say the least. One of them, a stuntwoman, was strapped prone on the hood, wrists tied to each side of the windshield. She was just doing one of her usual hellcat things, showing off while her friends race through the countryside, until Mike blasted out of nowhere and turned an innocent stunt into something more deadly. The girls had to really put the pedal to the metal in order to escape Mike, and meanwhile our stunt lady is being tossed every which way on the car. When it's over, all three want revenge. Who wouldn't? Mike mistakenly thinks he can walk over and have them join in his laughter-what a ride! He's very wrong, and Quentin's movie ends with the trio shooting and beating Mike to death in the roadway, all to the rhythms of another lost chestnut of a pop song. I imagine crowds in the theaters must've cheered. The SOB certainly had it coming; he was a psycho who tortured and killed girls throughout the movie. As the whips came down and the boot heels sunk into Mike's skull, it was hard for me not to feel a bit disturbed, too. Sadism is sadism, regardless of the sadist-good or evil. Maybe they were all capable of evil deeds, but the evil itself just switched sides?

How many revenge fantasies have you watched? Countless films and TV shows revolve around the theme of getting even, giving back what was given. We all relate. It's from the gut, primal. It's fair. Someone screws with you, your family, your culture, you balance the equation. Remember when Ted Bundy got the electric chair? There were celebrations everywhere, parties in front of the institution where it went down. "He's gonna bake like microwave pizza!" exclaimed a parody called "Everyone Knows It's Bundy" done to the tune of "Everyone Knows It's Windy." I laughed at the time, but over time I've thought back on that, my feelings about the death penalty in general. Evil for evil. Hard for those of the flesh to see a problem. What if your child was killed?

I'll park it right there, as I don't intend for this review to seem as long as that of the running time of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, QT's latest. But I couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable as I watched this grandiose story of vengeance. A team of Jewish/American soliders, "The Basterds", led by Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), are recruited to comb occupied France to hunt down Nazis (or, Naaaht-zees) during WW II. Their methodology is brutal. After each Nazi is shot, they are then scalped, per Raine's request. The really unlucky ones get their heads treated like a baseball when the Babe's up to bat. Survivors, few as they are, get a swastika carved into their foreheads, so no one will ever mistake them for anything else. The violence and gore that they mete out, gruesome and swift. Most of QT's films have at least one potentially unwatchable bit of violence; this one has numerous.

The basterds themselves are a rag tag team, very sketchily drawn. We learn that Raine is from Tennessee, a plot point that supplies much humor late in the film when the character attempts to pass off an Italian accent. The aforementioned bat swinger is a rather scarily enthusiastic fellow named Donny Donowitz, or "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth). Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), in typical Tarantino fluorish, is given a backstory montage complete with 70s-looking font and a Sam Jackson narration. Of the other basterds, we learn next to nothing. We do not follow them from A-B, step by step, like THE DIRTY DOZEN, or the 1978 Italian film upon which BASTERDS is (sort of) based. They are one plot strand, dropped for what seems hours at a time.

There is another Jew hot for retribution. Her name is Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), survivor of the brilliant opening scene, in which she and others hide under the floorboards of a French dairy farmer. The others are massacred cavalierly by SS troops, under the orders of a wily, charismatic officer, Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shoshanna escapes to Paris, assumes an alias, and opens a cinema that runs films by the likes of P.W. Pabst and Leni Riefenshtal. Much film geekery dialogue commences, much to my delight. How can it be a QT if there wasn't? Fate lends a hand and after meeting a German solidier who was recruited to play himself in a propaganda film triumphing the will of the noble Nazis, Shoshanna finds herself hosting a screening to be attended by high ranking officials, including der fuhrer himself, Adolph Hitler. A plot is hatched that involves combustible celluloid, in both literal and figurative senses. But the basterds have their own plans for the evening.....

There is much more. I didn't mention the Mexican standoff between Nazis and British film critics pretending to be Nazis, for one. BASTERDS, also in typical Tarantino fashion, spends oodles of running time not portraying action scenes, but rather framing the actors as they make plans, talk tough, and even play parlor games. Clocked minute for minute, I'd venture to say there is more talk than bang-bang. We don't get the pop culture zingers (this is the 40s), but still the rapier wit we've come to expect in a QT production. And the style. The energy. Quentin is as exciting as any contemporary American director. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS has a jangly elan that is Quentin's own. He borrows and steals (again) every idea in his script, doubtless born out of untold numbers of hours of watching others' movies, but it is directed with such verve that even scenes with charcters sitting across the table from each other have an unexplainable zest. His use of Bowie's "Putting Out the Fire (with Gasoline)" is also quite deft; for the first time this song is the only ancient pop ditty on a QT soundtrack. The rest of the time we get Ennio Morricone scoring, hilariously played at top volume. A good deal of the time, I was entirely entertained. Also entertaining are the odd misspellings in the film's title, perhaps Quentin's commentary on miscommunication among cultures, a theme that is both a running gag and a more serious theme throughout the film. When asked about the curious spellings, Quentin answered cryptically, something to the effect that any attempt to understand it would do a disservice.

But, as fun as the movie is, the whole thing doesn't hold together as well as earlier efforts. This is a wildly uneven movie. There are several chapters throughout, each of which could be its own film, all of which, on their own, are perfect little shorts. Certainly, every time Landa is onscreen, he owns it. His fluid, unnerving performance is just perfect. Every time we see him, he corners a character, aware that they know that he knows they are lying about something. Cat and mouse, and Landa is in no particular hurry; he enjoys every tense moment before the inevitable. The opening scene with Landa and the farmer is nearly sweat inducing in its portent. Subsequent scenes with the Colonel are equally nerve wracking. But, Quentin, imo, sells out the character in the final reels that seemed a bit of a cop-out, if not entirely dishonest to the character. Again, a bit uneven. In a funhouse such as BASTERDS, more than a few consessions are made in the name of pure cinematic joy.

So I return to my original concerns. I will not explain the climax, but suffice it to say that the bloodlust does get the better of the proceedings. It's satisfying, alright, but troubling just the same. But I got the same vibe I did from DEATH PROOF, that underneath the energy there is a conscience. I don't think Quentin is trying to make any grand statements, and I never expect him to. At the same time, I don't think he is merely playing to the bloodthirsty peanut galleries. It may be buried, but I think that maybe our loquacious auteur just might want us to stop and wonder what we're cheering about. Maybe.