Inglourious Basterds

I went into this one expecting the standard Tarantino-fare; a mashup of various storylines, clever dialogue, good music, style and tons of action. I got something totally different, and outstanding.

Inglourious Basterds was fantastic because there was so much tension. Lots of dialogue, with not nearly as much action as I was expecting, yet still I was engrossed in the story because I was so eager to see what happens next. In most movies you have some tense moments and then you relax for a couple minutes between the next sequence. Not this one...there is an actual feeling of discomfort through pretty much the whole movie. Not bad discomfort, just a feeling of uneasiness, like something bad is about to happen...and it often does.

The other thing that amazed me about this movie was
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how quickly characters died. Most movies with a "crew" of good guys, you see them all the way to the end of the movie where some of them might die in a big, climactic battle sequence. Not here. Almost as quickly as we were introduced to some characters, they were wiped out in furiously entertaining fashion. I liked how one storyarc came up that you thought was going to be the big climactic battle sequence, and it ended up being it's own story, and its own incredibly awesome and tense sequence (the basement of the bar), and just as abruptly as it had started, that chapter was done, and those characters gone.
Also, the actor who played Col. Hans Landa, Christoph Waltz, was unbelievable. He should (and will) win every supporting actor award...speaking fluently in French, German, English...and other languages...and he was equally frightening/intimidating/entertaining in all.

Only one complaint:
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at the very end, with the movie theater, security would have been absolutely everywhere with that many dignitaries. I know that Col. Landa was in charge of security, so perhaps he knew what was going on and that's why security was so light, but there is no way that two random strange looking dudes could run through the lobby unchallenged and just have to take down TWO guards to get to the friggin' leader of the Nazis'...jeez.


Loved it. Thought it was one of Tarantino's best films. I like pretty much everything he's done, and this one definitely has it's own special place in my list of his best.

5/5