Inglourious Basterds Review

Okay then, so you haven't seen the original Inglorious Bastards. Worry no longer - Quentin Tarantino's latest has as much to do with Enzo G Castellari's exploitation movie as Ice-T has to do with the history of the East India Company (thank you, Douglas Adams). And those fretting that QT might still be on a Grind House kick can also calm themselves. Death Proof this ain't. His best film since Pulp Fiction it most certainly is.

Not that everyone will see it as such. Indeed, you wouldn't have to try too hard to find Inglourious Basterds a trying exercise in excess and homage. Too in thrall to other movies and gratuitous violence the cynic might say. The trouble is, adopting this sort of position is to deny yourself a lot of entertainment. Because Inglourious Basterds is as much fun as you can have in a cinema without embarrassing an usher or making your popcorn too salty.

It's 1943, and the war is in the balance. Led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the Basterds of the title are a Jewish-American platoon operating behind enemy lines. Bent on murdering as many Nazis as possible, the Basterds' targets include such notorious characters as Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz, more of him later), a Standartenführer so good at sniffing out Semites he has earned the nickname "The Jew Hunter". Meanwhile, in Paris, the Nazi elite are out to celebrate the heroics of Private Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl) whose defence of a Nazi position has landed him the starring role in the latest film by director-cum-Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth). The only question is where to screen the film? Perhaps enigmatic cinema owner Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) can be of assistance.