Tarantino's Masterpiece?

If you read a handful of reviews for Inglourious Basterds (yes both are misspelled as in the title) and you'll see the term "masterpiece" bandied about, perhaps too freely.

I'd say it is Mr. Tarantino's most mature movie to date, surpassing Jackie Brown in terms of maturity. I'll say for a fact that after Death Proof (the oddly ironic movies which cost a lot to make to look cheap, you can find my review if you look back in my previous blog posts) Mr. Tarantino needed a win.

Inglourious Basterds is that win but masterpiece? Could this movie surpass the mighty Pulp Fiction?

To start with the dialogue is trademark Tarantino, his witty banter is the tent pole of this movie. Quite honestly there isn't as much violence as the trailers imply. You'd think there would be wall to wall gore and you'd be wrong. Yes there is some graphic violence but for the most part it is either very quick or almost comedic.

Brad Pitt heads the cast but Christoph Waltz's Colonel Hans Landa is the star of the movie, and possibly on screen more than Pitt and the Basterds. His honeyed conversational manner, the perfect vessel for Tarantino's dialogue, hides a mind as sharp as fictional character Sherlock Holmes and a viciousness as cruel as any in all filmdom. He is simply masterful as the Jew Hunter.

The opening scene brings back memories of the beautiful Tarantino penned scene between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper from True Romance. The tension so nonexistent that you never notice it until it is so thick you could cut it with a knife. I'd say it easily goes down as one of Tarantino's best scenes he has ever written and you veteran Hitchcock fans will notice one of Hitchcock's basic suspense building blocks.

Again if you read any reviews you'll also see the term "revenge fantasy" and that's definitely true. I'd like to say it's a cliche but it really isn't, it's that but it's so much more. The story isn't that complex but the way it is told, in five chapters, makes it so much more than it really is.

Pitt seems to revert to Jeffery Goines as Lt. Aldo Raines, the pseudo psychotic/sadist Nazi hunter sent to cause terror among the Third Reich foot soldiers. The disappointing thing is that you really never get to know any of them other than director Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever) as the Bear Jew. His standout scene is in a ditch where the Basterds interrogate a Nazi officer about where a nearby patrol is. In fact that is really the lone scene where you see the Basterds as a group for any length of time.

You really don't get to know much about them as you would in say The Dirty Dozen or a true masterpiece Seven Samurai. The Basterds are really a secondary plot line to the revenge plot of Shosanna Dreyfus who you'll briefly be introduced to in the opening scene.

Again not exactly what you would infer from the trailers you might have seen. So once again we return to the term "masterpiece" and is this movie deserving of that title?

Offhand I'd say it still ranks below Pulp Fiction and possibly on par with the Kill Bill movies. Pulp Fiction is a movie where everything works on every level and with every line. This movie does work but you might not be expecting so much story with your violent movie.

Without the hated spoilers that's about as much as I can talk about without giving anything away. I'd say watch it, temper your expectations, and just enjoy it for what it is. A witty movie with Tarantino dialogue!