Movie Review: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Inglourious Basterds, is a story told in chapters. Literally. A title card pops up at various times in the film indicating a new chapter is about to begin. Each chapter tells a mini-story and introduces the audience to characters who will eventually all meet at a French movie theater, where a new Nazi film will premiere. The idea? Blow up the theater and end World War II. While the chapter structure is largely unique and Tarantino (who writes and directs the film) uses it masterfully in the first, second and fifth segments, the middle can't help but get bogged down.

The casting isn't the problem with Basterds: each actor more than holds their own, bringing to life a well-rounded character with what they're ultimately given to work with. Brad Pitt as American lieutenant Aldo Raine gets top-billing, but it's Christoph Waltz's Nazi colonel Hans Landa who steals the show. All at once, Waltz exudes charm, ruthlessness and dry wit, keeping everyone around Landa terrifyingly off-balance. The first segment, in which he gently interrogates a French dairy farmer about missing Jews, is the best example of this, not to mention the best segment in the film. There is a genuine feeling, before everything hits the fan, that Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet) will be cleared of any wrongdoing, thanks to the used car salesman smile Waltz bandies about. The man knows his job, knows he's good at it and is able to have "fun." Tarantino uses a single location for the sequence, which serves as a prologue and backstory for two different characters, and only two actors for a majority of its running time. In essence, it's a battle of wills between LaPadite and Landa with each piece of dialogue carefully layered on the previous to ratchet the tension up bit by bit.

The Basterds themselves are introduced in the second part, which nearly equals the first because of Pitt's over-the-top, scene-chewing performance. Much like Landa, Raine is a multitude of character traits rolled into one: barbaric, sarcastic, humorous. Indeed, late in the film, he goes undercover as an Italian. And when he utters "arrivederci" (as an Tenessean trying to sound Italian), he's positively hilarious. What Tarantino does in the second segment is make exposition fun. Well, maybe fun is the wrong word since there are copious shots of Nazi's being scalped or getting their heads beaten in with baseball bats. But he lets the actors ham it up, within context, and create vivid, rich personalities on screen. Not that many of them get a whole lot to do; Pitt and Eli Roth as Donny Donowitz are the main players on the American side and receive most of the screen time. (The thought of skinny Roth being known as The Bear Jew is funny in itself, until he walks out of a dark tunnel carrying a baseball bat.)

And this is where the film completely loses its focus. Yes, Tarantio is trying to tell multiple stories all at the same time with the express purpose of dovetailing them together for the final act. And yes, there are positive attributes to each of them-in particular, the fourth, taking place inside a bar. On the whole, after being exposed to the Basterds and a healthy dose of Landa, we want more of both of those elements, not less. Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger as movie theater owner Shosanna Dreyfus and actress Bridget von Hammersmark more than hold their own against the men they share the screen with and the story makes logical, rational sense. It's just, honestly, boring. Neither of them nor their co-stars have the ability to command the screen like Pitt or Waltz. And that's a pity, considering where the story had just been.

The main thrust of part III involves a Nazi war hero-Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl)-trying to get the time of day from Shosanna. And it is because he is infatuated with her the rest of the story can take place. Yeah, yeah, the audience gets that. My question is did the action have to be such a let down on the heels of what came before? Maybe it did, maybe Tarantino wanted the story to slow down after the first two installments. Scenes seemingly go on forever of Zoller being congratulated and recognized by SS officers, much to Shosanna's disgust. Parts III and IV simply don't have the punch of the first two. (The end of the scene in the bar notwithstanding. It reverts back to earlier in the film.)

All of this is in service of the final act, a wild orgy of people, deception, action and explosions. This type of scene may be what Tarantino does best in Inglourious Basterds: barely controlled, balls to the wall, damn it all to hell action. Even with the devil may care attitude, he stills has tight control on everything that happens. The actors are carefully choreographed, the personalities encountered along the way, the action organic to the story and the reintroduction of both Pitt and Waltz, this time sharing a number of scenes together. They are the two biggest assets Tarantino has at his disposal, superb actors in these roles playing off one another. Waltz, for his work, should be nominated for an acting Oscar this year. He's that much of a joy to watch.