With such iconic films as the Oscar-winning Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill: Volumes 1 & 2, and Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino has become the most famous and revered writer/director of his generation. Now he's back with his most ambitious movie yet: the World War II epic Inglourious Basterds. Starring Brad Pitt and filmed on location in Germany and France, it has the largest cast of characters of any Tarantino film to date. The movie will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009.The action tale follows the parallel story of a guerilla-like squad of American soldiers called "The Basterds" and the French Jewish teenage girl Shosanna who find themselves behind enemy Nazi lines during the German occupation. When the Inglourious Basterds encounter Shosanna at a propaganda screening at the movie house she runs, they conspire to launch an unexpected plot to end the war. Pitt plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine-the leader of the Basterds. Raine is an illiterate hillbilly from the mountains of Tennessee who puts together a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers to hunt down the Nazis.
Filled with Tarantino's trademark electric dialogue and thrilling action sequences, Inglourious Basterds is destined to become one of the most talked about films of 2009 and a landmark in cinematic history.
Vanessa's Review:
Wow! Where do I begin? Tarantino does not let us down in this World War II Nazi-infested tale of survival and gruesome murders (ahh, the irony). The screenplay parallels two different stories. The first being with Shosanna Dreyfuss. She's a jewish girl hiding from the Nazi's under the floorboards of a German Farmhouse. Her family gets machine-gunned by Colonel Landa's minions in front her and is the only survivor. Her mission in life stays the same: survival but with a twist -- to get revenge. The second story to parallel Shosanna's is about the Inglourious Basterds led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine. The basterds mission is to kill all Nazi's, torture them like they've tortured all the Jews, and scalp them. Their stories meet up when all the prominent Nazi's converge in the same cinema. Shosanna and the Basterds are simultaneously planning their revenge in the same location, at the same time, though neither knows about the other. Will they both execute their plans effectively? Or will they die trying?
The story is definitely Tarantino-esque will all the mayhem and witty dialogue. If I would post all the lines that I liked the most, I'd be here a while, and you'd be reading the entire screenplay! I'll just post a little dialogue between Lt. Aldo Raine and the Basterds that happened in the beginning of chapter 2 and sums up the Basterd's mission:
Excerpt: Lt. Aldo Raine: "My name is Lt. Aldo Raine and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y'all might of heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doing one thing and one thing only... killing Nazis. Members of nationalist socialist party conquered Europe through murder, torture, intimation, and terror. And that's exactly what we're gonna do to them. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half Sicily and then jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why every son of a bitch we find wearin' a Nazi uniform, they're gonna die. We will be cruel to the Germans and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies their brothers we leave behind us and the Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us, the Germans will talk about us and the Germans will fear us. And when the Germans close their eyes at night and their subconscious tortures them for the evil they've done, it will be with thoughts of us that it tortures them with. Sound good?"
The Basterds: "YES, SIR!"
Lt. Aldo Raine: "That's what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning to all would-be warriors. When you join my command, you take on a debit. A debit you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y'all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis. Or you will die tryin'."
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