Inglourious Basterds (2009) USA, Germany
Inglourious Basterds Image Cover
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Director:Quentin Tarantino
Studio:Universal Studios
Producer:Lawrence Bender
Writer:Quentin Tarantino
Rating:3.5 (397 votes)
Rated:R
Date Added:2010-03-06
ASIN:B002T9H2L0
UPC:025192015397
Price:$39.98
Awards:Won Oscar, Another 58 wins & 54 nominations
Genre:Action & Adventure
Release:2009-12-15
IMDb:0361748
Duration:153
Picture Format:Widescreen
Aspect Ratio:2.40:1
Sound:AC-3
Languages:English, French, Spanish
Subtitles:English, French, Spanish
Features:Special Edition
Quentin Tarantino  ...  (Director)
Quentin Tarantino  ...  (Writer)
 
Brad Pitt  ...  Lt. Aldo Raine
Mike Myers  ...  
André Penvern  ...  
Michael Bacall  ...  
Bo Svenson  ...  
Robert Richardson  ...  Cinematographer
Mélanie Laurent  ...  Shosanna Dreyfus / Emmanuelle Mimieux
Christoph Waltz  ...  Col. Hans Landa
Eli Roth  ...  Sgt. Donny Donowitz
Michael Fassbender  ...  Lt. Archie Hicox
Diane Kruger  ...  Bridget von Hammersmark
Daniel Brühl  ...  Pvt. Fredrick Zoller
Til Schweiger  ...  Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz
Gedeon Burkhard  ...  Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki
Jacky Ido  ...  Marcel
B.J. Novak  ...  Pfc. Smithson Utivich
Omar Doom  ...  Pfc. Omar Ulmer
August Diehl  ...  Major Hellstrom
Denis Menochet  ...  Perrier LaPadite
Sylvester Groth  ...  Joseph Goebbels
Cristoph Waltz  ...  
Denis Ménochet  ...  Perrier LaPadite
Summary: 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"