Inglourious Basterds (2009).

The spelling of this film's title greatly pisses me off, being a self-confessed grammar Nazi. Ironically enough, this Quentin Tarantino flick is about Nazi-occupied France. Split into 5 chapters, this film follows two sets of characters as they progress towards the same goal - killing Nazis: The Basterds are a group of Jewish-American soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), going around France killing, scalping, branding as many Nazi soldiers as they can find. Shosanna Dreyfuss (Mélanie Laurent), a French Jew who runs a cinema in Paris, in which an exclusive German film prémiere is taking place. She takes the opportunity of this event and plans to kill all the Nazis that turn up by burning down the cinema. Despite sharing aims, Shosanna and The Basterds never cross paths, yet you'd think they planned everything together by the way things turned out. The first chapter is set in rural France, on a dairy farm. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a detective for the Third Reich convinces a French farmer to give away the hiding place of a Jewish family underneath the floorboards. I think this was my favourite part, as Landa's character is introduced and stays with you throughout the film - he has an uncanny ability to notice tiny details and strike fear into people without at all being threatening. Yet as the film progresses, it is implied that he is somewhat insane - in his laughter, the way he talks etc. Another wonderful scene is when he and Shosanna are in the tea room, having strudels. Unknown to him, Shosanna was the runaway Jewish girl on that dairy farm. Yet his obliviousness makes this almost comical if it wasn't for Shosanna's obvious distress at the situation. However, there are many other laughter-inducing moments in this action-comedy. One of which is Eli Roth's role as "The Bear Jew", 'nuff said. Brad Pitt's performance as the thickly-accented Tennessee hillbilly was hilarious, no matter how much I don't want to like Brad Pitt, roles like this means I can't help but do so. However, Christoph Waltz outshines him by far. His performance as Landa has so far earned him the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Best Actor award, and I am sure there are more where that came from. Appearances from Mike Myers (posh & british, just how we like him) and Samuel L Jackson (nothing needed to be said) tops off this film perfectly as a wonderful mix of action and comedy.

From the opening credits, it is clear this is Tarantino's doing. Minimalist shots, long drawn out conversations, gorey violence and continuous filming. I think the main feature of this film is the dialogue, and in particular the language. French, German, English and Italian are all spoken (albeit fluently by Landa) throughout, with some non-straining subtitling. I noticed, especially in the first chapter how French words such as "merci" were left in French in the subtitles for some characters, whilst translated in English for others. Just shows how important language and dialogue are for the flow and tempo of this film. The music is also coupled brilliantly - from the spanish western-esque ballads at the opening to the classical pieces for death scenes. One drawback is the length of this film. At just under 3 hours long, I think that many of the scenes could have been cut down to tease the plot along faster, however one may argue that this deviates from the whole point of a classic Tarantino, in which Inglourious Basterds certainly is.

I am now downloading the Kill Bill volumes in HD (it makes a huge difference, trust me) so I can appreciate QT some more.