Basterds of the inglorious type

“Inglorious Basterds” takes place throughout WWII (1941-44 in Nazi France) following a group of American-Jewish soldiers—coined “The Basterds” —with one mission. Kill lots of Nazis…as brutally as possible. But seeing as this is Tarantino it just can’t be that simple, a few other stories exist as well (they are broken into 5 different chapters as the movie goes along and later intertwine). The Basterds receive a mission to help in the assassination of all of the German high command, which is attending a German movie premiere at a French theater owned by a French-Jewish girl, Shosanna Dreyfus; who years earlier barely escaped with her life as her family was executed but SS men. With the perfect chance, opportunity lays in the lap of The Basterds and Shosanna with the ability to end the war, if all goes as planned.

Going into this movie my expectations where high. How could this movie not be great? Starring Brad Pitt, Lt. Aldo Raine, an American-Jewish soldier from the south who loves to kill him “some Natzis" leads The Basterds; with a solid actor like this not a bad start, right? The movie even "guest stars" (as introduced in the title) Ryan (B.J. Novak) from the hit NBC show “The Office”. But this all fell short of what I had presumed, “Inglorious Basterds” plot was shaky at times, wasting their time developing The Basterds and then going no where with them later in the movie. This was really upsetting because it would have added interest to the movie to see where these different characters went throughout the movie; but the movie goes a different direction keeping the characters of the Basterds they developed in very minor roles, besides Aldo; who we don’t know much about at all consequently. One thing that did not fall short was Tarantino’s reputation for his obsession with violence, on many occasions the Nazis are killed gruesomely (the worst so being possibly being with a baseball bat) and then scalped by the Basterds (which they show from time to time). So if you’re going to the movie purely for the shoot ‘em up massacre of Nazis you wont be disappointed; just don’t expect anything on the lines of “Saving Private Ryan” or any more accurate WWII era movie. But at times the movie dragged on (overall run time ended up 152 minutes) and the plot slowed down, making you want to get back to the action of the movie because of the lack of interest in the slow moving plot (a bad sign in a movie that tries to develop the plot and not just be another action movie). Over all the movie provided entertainment (although not for those weak of stomach and when I say weak I don’t mean a little blood, I mean defacement) and laughs from time to time provided by Aldo in his almost “Ernest goes to…” acting and comments. Saying this the movie turned out to be just another action movie, this one involving the killing of Nazis surrounded by solid acting a shaky plot. Seeing it once is enough for me. But if you’re looking for a rainy day movie and want to see Nazis being obliterated it’s worth the $5 matinee viewing.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10