ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

QUENTIN TARANTINO is the ultimate movie buff. He probably has celluloid in his veins. His long-awaited World War Two epic Inglourious Basterds is a lurid tribute to the likes of The Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare.

It is steeped in movie references, from a borrowed soundtrack of evocative old scores by Ennio Morricone and Elmer Bernstein to passing potshots at real life Nazi sympathisers like director Leni Reifenstahl and actor Emil Jannings. It is an audacious, bullet-ridden fantasy told with a swaggering self-confidence that is hard to resist.

Presented in chapters, the lengthy film follows rival plots to end World War Two by assassinating Hitler and leading figures in the Third Reich, who are all conveniently attending a film premiere in Paris.

The ‘Basterds’ are a group of gung-ho American-Jewish patriots dedicated to killing Nazis and taking their scalps as trophies. Their leader is hillbilly hero Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Their plan is to blow up the cinema.

A rival plan involves the cinema’s owner Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), who want to avenge the death of her family at the hands of the hated Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz).

Inglourious Basterds is top heavy with dialogue, but Tarantino uses words with the same precision and impact as other film-makers use bullets. An opening sequence in a French farm and a showdown in a cellar bar crackle with a tension that escalates through cat and mouse conversations in which betrayal is only a heartbeat away.

The film is violent, overblown, and even strays into comical ‘Allo ‘Allo territory with the appearance of a badly miscast Mike Myers as tally ho General Ed Fenech.

That is an exception, though generally the film is well cast, with a standout performance from German television star Christoph Waltz, who captures all the smarmy menace and arrogance of Landa with great relish.

He plays the kind of Nazi you love to hate, and deserves some Oscar attention for a performance that has already won him a Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival. After the disappointment of Death Proof, fans will relish the return of Tarantino at close to the top of his form.

Nationwide release

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl, Til Schweiger
Screenwriter: Quentin Tarantino
Certificate: 18
Running time: 152 mins
Country: USA
Year: 2009