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Brad Pitt stars in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds
Earlier this year Quentin Tarantino, known primarily for his decidedly 70s influenced blockbusters like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill, did something bizarre even for him. He mentored the wannabes on American Idol during movie week. Thankfully, this week marks the former video store clerk's return to what he knows best, directing what is sure to be one of his most successful films yet, Inglourious Basterds.
If you've seen the trailers, you know the film stars Brad Pitt. I guess I could stop there, but he is joined on screen by, among others, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Walz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl , Til Schweiger and perhaps most surprisingly, B.J. Novak. Novak is best known for his role as Ryan on NBC's Americanized version of The Office, yes people, the Brits did it right the first time.
As for the plot, the film takes place during World War II and is set in Nazi-occupied France, and centers around a group of Jewish-American soldiers, known as The Basterds, who have been hand picked to pillage the Third Reich and kill the leader of the Nazis. Tarantino's film shares the same name, save two letters, as 1978's Italian cult favorite, Inglorious Bastards, directed by Enzo G. Castellari, an iconic director of the then popular spaghetti western genre. While Tarentino has, of course, acknowledged the original, he maintains that his Basterds is not a remake.
Having seen the original, and now the Tarantino film, I would have to disagree. OK, so in the original, the group of US Army dissenters and various good for nothings band together to attempt to escape Germany for neutral Sweden. In the process, they get mixed up in a plot to disable a German missile and accidentally kill a few American agents disguised as Nazi soldiers. Then they get caught by members of the French Resistance, and have no choice but to complete the dead agents' mission of disabling the missiles. Unfortunately, they intercept a plot to disable a German V2 missile and accidentally kill a group of American agents disguised as German soldiers. The original exploitation film contained all the expected elements, buxom scantily clad women, blatant racism, rediculous action sequences and as only Castellari could, all brilliantly pieced together. Tarantino's movie is the same movie, with the exception of the added bonus of three of the basterds carrying out plans to kill Hitler himself.
So it seems only natural that Tarantino would bastardize this cult classic in what he has called, his own "masterpiece." Recently asked about the spelling the title, he hasn't commented on the extra u in Inglourious, but during a recent David Letterman appearance, he said, "Basterds? That's just the way you say it: Basterds," adding, "It's the Tarantino way of spelling it."
Bottom line, anyway you spell it, Basterds and the original Bastards are a great throwback to a nearly forgotten genre on cinematic absurdity.
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