By Robert Scucci
| Published
Previously known for endlessly talking about how much he loves his own work without naming a favorite, Quentin Tarantino recently broke tradition by declaring Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood his personal favorite. But when it comes to what he considers his masterpiece, that title belongs to Inglourious Basterds.
It’s easy to see why: an absurdist, revisionist approach to real events becomes the ultimate wish fulfillment for anyone who imagines themselves living on the right side of history.
Inglourious Basterds is comically violent with a sardonic sense of humor. Unlike Reservoir Dogs, which centers on a botched heist, a very different mission emerges here. The band’s not coming together to steal diamonds. It’s coming together to kill Hitler.
Arrivederci
Inglourious Basterds unfolds in an alternate timeline resembling German-occupied France at the height of World War II. It first follows SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) as he ruthlessly hunts Jewish families for Hitler’s genocide campaign. The story then pivots to the “Basterds,” led by Brad Pitt’s Lieutenant Aldo Raine, a brutal gang of guerrilla fighters whose sole purpose is to scalp Nazis on their path to assassinating the Führer himself.
Tying these threads together is Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a French Jewish cinema owner who survived Landa’s massacre of her family three years earlier. Shosanna crafts her own elaborate plan, luring high-ranking German officials into her theater for the premiere of a propaganda film titled Stolz der Nation, and burning it to the ground with them inside.
That film within the film dramatizes the exploits of German sniper Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), who, in his mind, woos Shosanna into hosting the premiere.
Cartoonish Violence And The Plot Of A Lifetime
Released just a year after Valkyrie, another Hitler-assassination tale, Inglourious Basterds could not be more different. Where Valkyrie sticks to historical accuracy, Tarantino goes fully absurd, gleefully rewriting the past with dark humor. The result was embraced worldwide, including by French and German audiences, who praised its audacity.
From Pitt’s phony Italian accent barely masking his character’s Tennessee drawl to Waltz’s chilling grin as he commits unspeakable acts with bureaucratic ease, every serious moment is undercut by humor only Tarantino could stage. At its core, the movie carries the DNA of a revenge thriller, with clear good and bad guys. The Basterds’ conviction that they are on the right side of history frees them to indulge in brutality with an almost childlike sense of verve and enthusiasm, adding immensely to the film’s entertainment value.
Streaming Inglourious Basterds
Over-the-top violence is par for any Tarantino outing, and Inglourious Basterds is no exception. Some scenes will absolutely make your skin crawl, yet the storytelling keeps you hooked, as if watching a spaghetti western transposed onto occupied France.
It may make you squirm, but its ability to gut-punch you without losing its humor is exactly why Tarantino calls Inglourious Basterds his masterpiece.
Inglourious Basterds is streaming on Netflix.
