Tim's Periscope

Many wondered after the much-maligned Deathproof whether Quentin Tarantino had started to lose his touch.  It’s not that it was a terrible movie, it just didn’t quite hit the stratospheric levels of excellence associated with the work of the great director.

We needn’t have worried though. His newest piece, Inglourious Basterds, is a truly spectacular return to form.

Set in wartime France, Inglourious Basterds follows the story of a group of Jewish American soldiers on a simple mission-to hunt down and kill as many Nazis as they can.

From the seat-grippingly tense opening scenes to the blood curdlingly violent final sequences, Tarantino takes us on a ride through our emotions.   Every base is covered on the way, from the eye wateringly gory to the side splittingly funny, this movie leaves you breathless and itching for more at every turn.

Refreshingly, Tarantino failed to fall into the trap that other recent war films, such as Valkyrie and Defiance, have fallen into and not used English speaking actors for non-English speaking roles. The Germans speak German, the French speak French and so on, just the way it should be.  Despite the fact most of the dialogue is read rather than heard, Tarantino’s trade mark conversational writing style comes through brilliantly, with every character feeling well developed and real.

Brad Pitt headlines an excellent cast and plays the role of psychotic officer Lt. Aldo Raine to perfection, proving once again why he is regarded by many as Hollywoods hottest property, although the stand out performance comes from Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, who will surely will showered with awards for his turn as the suave German ‘Jew Hunter’ Col. Hans Landa. His characters presence in a scene instantly has you on edge, as he’s stalks through France in his attempts to round up the last of the Jews.

Although Inglourious Basterds won’t shape a decades worth of cinema in the same way as Tarantino’s masterpiece Pulp Fiction did, in years to come when his other works such as Jackie Brown and Kill Bill have started to fade from memory, Inglourious Basterds will still be shining brightly as an example of cinematic brilliance.

Be sure to check it out when it hits the stores on DVD and Bluray on December 7.