Inglourious Basterds is the latest offering from Quentin Tarantino, a director I have every reason to hate. He’s a plagiarist and an egomaniac; his movies often seem to serve no artistic purpose aside from showcasing his own encyclopedic knowledge of film; he is brazenly, gleefully anti-intellectual in his attitude toward the whole film-making process; he seeks out, cultivates and enables other directors who are far less talented than he is; he has a truly creepy fixation with women’s feet and he Never. Stops. Talking. And yet every time I hear he’s coming out with a new picture, or even see a poster for some unholy mess with “Quentin Tarantino Presents” slapped onto the top, my radar goes up. And with Basterds it wasn’t any different, even after the lack of satisfaction I got from Kill Bill and Grindhouse. Even with the ad campaign that made a movie about WWII assassins look like a light-hearted sub-Coenesque caper. Even with the presence of Eli Roth and Brad Pitt’s strange, strange accent.

And it was worth it, because the Tarantino that gave me Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction is finally back.

One thing needs to be made clear: Inglourious Basterds is not a war movie; it’s a fantasy. A twisted, controversial and oddly self-condemning fantasy about revenge and consequence. The movie is broken down into five chapters and split into two basic plotlines: the one advertised, that is, the Basterds hunting down Nazis and another involving a French Jewish girl named Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), whose family was killed by the notorious Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). The stories join when the Basterds aid a military operation led by British officer Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) and German movie star/spy Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). The plan: to infiltrate a screening of a Nazi propaganda flick, which premieres at the theater the adult Shoshanna – living in disguise of course – now runs. All the major SS players will be at this movie, with Landa in charge of security. Shoshanna has plans of her own, and so does Landa, and nobody gets exactly what they were planning.

The biggest issue most people seem to have with this movie is that the Basterds are minor players in their own flick. I didn’t mind this; the truth is, the Basterds are a brutal, over-the-top bunch and only three of them are given any character development at all: giddy redneck leader Aldo Raine (Pitt), bat-wielding “Bear Jew” Donny Donowitz (Roth) and former German soldier Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), and all three of them are scary sons-of-bitches. (The idea of Raine in particular being put in charge of people is really genuinely disturbing). By contrast most of the Nazi characters are fairly complex and at times even sympathetic; they certainly come across as more human than the Basterds. Yet they are still undeniably villains. If there is any heroic character in Basterds at all, it would have to be Shoshanna; her motivation is the easiest to understand and, even as her actions become darker, she maintains her humanity to the end. Still, the inversion of character is impossible to ignore, and challenging to absorb. Basterds, like the beautifully nihilistic Reservoir Dogs, fed my viewer bloodlust but, in the end, also punished me for it a little bit. What’s surprising is Tarantino manages to do this without insulting me, succeeding where many more respectable artists (I’m looking at you, Haneke) have failed.

Tarantino has always had four major strengths: presenting outrageous yet engaging characters, putting together a cast, putting together a soundtrack, and dialogue. Inglourious Basterds plays up three of those strengths to great effect. I’ve mentioned Shoshanna’s merits as a character, and, despite the lack of depth, the Basterds are still pretty cool, the same way characters in a spaghetti western are cool (the Leone influence is laid on pretty thick throughout the whole picture, actually). But they all pale in comparison to Landa. Charming, clever, patient, terrifying, and played to icy perfection by Christoph Waltz, Landa deserves a place on every list of great movie villains.

The rest of the cast is strong as well, mostly. I’ve always liked Brad Pitt better as a comic actor than a dramatic one, and he cranks up the camp to 11 here, the humor being an attempt to (somewhat) distract you from seeing just how unhinged Raine really is. It’s one of his top performances, easily my favorite since Snatch; yet it is only about the fifth best performance in the picture, coming in behind Waltz, Laurent, Kruger and Schweiger. Also in top form is Daniel Bruhl, who plays Zoller, an SS soldier who becomes infatuated with Shoshanna, with unfortunate results. B.J. Novak and Omar Doom (“The Little Man” and Private Omar) also do a lot with not much screen time. Eli Roth is almost bearable until he opens his mouth. And Mike Myers briefly shows up as some sort of manservant to Churchill, and he’s more distracting than anything else. Samuel L. Jackson and Harvey Keitel also have cameos, sort of. Tarantino himself blessedly stays behind the camera.

The second major issue the general public is probably going to have with Basterds, is also its strongest asset. This is a massively dialogue-heavy film, and a good 3/4 of it isn’t even in English. (Which makes sense, actually; the movie is set in France, revolving around mostly German and French characters played by German and French actors. Still, it’s a ballsy move for an American director who’s famous for writing easy quips.) But the dialogue doesn’t detract from the action or disrupt it. In fact chapters 1,3, and 4, the chapters with the longest stretches of conversation, are also by far the most intense. Chapter 1 is especially effective, as Landa interrogates the farmer who is suspected to be hiding Shoshanna’s family. In this scene it’s clear from the first frame that something terrible is about to happen, it’s just a question of when and how. As the conversation slowly progresses from casual to sinister the fear and tension (aided by the excellent delivery of the actors) grows more and more agonizing; when the physical violence erupts, it’s actually a relief. As for the music, I was a little disappointed. I love Morricone as much as anybody can, but Tarantino’s selections of his work felt a little too neat and obvious, which is not like a Tarantino soundtrack at all. The tracks sounded downright oppressive in spots, although that may have been due to the theater’s sound system. When I watch this movie at home it might bother me less. And I will watch it again. Tarantino’s most ambitious and divisive movie to date, Inglourious Basterds is a perverse work of greatness.

8.5/10