It’s been a decade since Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist WWII epic, Inglourious Basterds, was dropped upon us and stirred up the debate of whether it’s his next Pulp Fiction or his next Death Proof.
With the benefit of hindsight, multiple viewings and additional entries into Tarantino’s filmography for comparison, the answer to the aforementioned debate about Inglourious Basterds is a resounding… bit of both?
It’s not hyperbole to say Inglourious Basterds contains some of the finest work Tarantino will ever pump out in his illustrious career.
This wouldn’t be a proper discussion about the Basterds without some mention of its iconic opening scene where Hans Landa – by far the best character Tarantino has ever created – rocks up to some poor French farmer’s house and systematically breaks the guy’s defences down. There’s a reason why people talk about it all the time: it’s brilliant.
It’s a masterclass in tension, acting, character development and seemingly meandering yet entertaining dialogue. It’s little surprise Tarantino himself thinks it’s the best thing he’s ever done.
But the opening scene is far from the only piece of Inglourious Basterds brilliance from Tarantino.
You could suffocate from the tension during Hans and Shosanna’s seemingly innocent lunchtime conversation over cigarettes and strudels; There’s the brilliant tavern scene where a game of “Guess who” descends into a bloody mess of German exchanges, flying bullets and lessons on the different ways you can express “three” with your fingers; And you’ve got the crazy final 20 or so minutes of the film where the high-stakes Operation Kino haphazardly unfolds, history is rewritten like fanfiction and Hans Landa finally gets his comeuppance when he gets a swastika engraved into his forehead.
If Tarantino were to retire immediately, any of those aforementioned scenes from Inglourious Basterds could easily be labeled the best thing he’s ever pumped out.
Okay, the “I think this just be my masterpiece” quote followed by the smash cut to the “Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino” card is a bit too on the nose but he gets a pass here because, well, no one’s going to argue that about certain parts of the movie.
But what about Inglourious Basterds as a coherent, three-act film? As a collection of scenes, it is second to none when compared to Tarantino’s other work.
As a movie, well, it’ll probably give Death Proof a run for its money as Tarantino’s worst film.
As brilliant as all those aforementioned individual scenes are in Inglourious Basterds, they don’t work quite as well when stitched together to form a proper narrative in service of a greater whole.
The plot meanders in some places, accelerates in others and the tonal dissonance between parallel storylines and themes (like Shosanna’s tragic revenge quest vs. the Basterds’ ridiculous hunt for Nazi scalps) can be jarring. You simply don’t get the usual sense of cohesion one finds in Tarantino’s other scripts.
It’s almost like he had so many good ideas that he decided to stuff it into a five-chapter film rather than make five films. Perhaps Inglourious Basterds is best described as “the sum of its parts is greater than the whole.” The individual scenes work brilliantly on their own but don’t gel when put together.
When the guy retires after his 10th film and we look back upon his body of work, Inglourious Basterds will stand out as both the best and worst we’ll see from Quentin Tarantino, all of which is wrapped up in a fiery inferno of cinema film with a Nazi swastika crudely carved into its forehead.