BOTTOM LINE: Tarantino manages to serve up one of his better films in this rather fun and unique re-imagining of end of World War II, filled with his trademark witty dialogue and violence. The film is however way too long, putting a major dent in an otherwise very clever film.

THE GOOD: Regardless of whether you like his style or not, director Quentin Tarantino manages to create a unique cinematic experience with every one of his films. "Inglourious Basterds" is no exception and is actually one of his best, offering an unusual, multi-layered story that simultaneously contains a clever plot, fantastic characters and Tarantino's trademark style. Although the title refers to a crack team of Nazi hunters led by a perfectly cast Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine, the main protagonist appears to be "Shoshanna" (Melanie Laurent), who escapes after her family is slaughtered by a Nazi death squad and finds herself in a position where she can destroy the entire Nazi leadership in one foul swoop. However, there are also at least two other stories going on, with the British and Americans hatching a plan to likewise wipe-out the Nazi leadership at the same opportunity as Shoshanna, and the nasty but engaging Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) who is hot on their heels as the defacto bad guy. The film unspools like a novel, broken up by chapters, and as such, it does not follow a conventional film structure. In the hands of another director this would have gone south but Tarantino shows just how good he is at shaping all of these disparate storylines in to one cohesive narrative that all come together in the climax. The dialogue is fantastic, particularly in its use of building tension in most of the scenes. Rather than have a gory blood-fest of violence, Tarantino uses the dialogue to slowly build the tension until all hell breaks loose (and even then, it is somewhat restrained). Surprisingly for a Hollywood film, Tarantino has actually used an incredible amount of foreign languages with subtitles rather than using English throughout. "Inglourious Basterds" is a fictional take on history that is fun to watch and is a prime example of Tarantino doing what he does best.

THE BAD: The film is way too long. The issue lies in the otherwise spectacular dialogue scenes. Tarantino uses the dialogue to build tension between characters, particularly in the sequences where you do not know whether the good guys will beat the bad guys. However, the dialogue in some instances just keeps going and going and going, where some select editing would have tightened it up, made the tension-build stronger and delivered a much cleaner and fast-paced film. The first sequence with Col. Landa and the Frenchman hiding Jews under his floor boards is an excellent example. The tension is good, but the dialogue manages to include "Hello, how are you? Having a nice day. Well that's nice," etc, etc. In each of these scenes, you know about half way through where it is heading, and you find yourself ahead of the scene rather than in it. If Tarantino had chopped about thirty minutes out of the film, a feat easily accomplished, "Inglourious Basterds" could have been a masterpiece of filmmaking.



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