The Basterds are merciless.

Inglourious Basterds (2009) is Quentin Tarantino’s sauerkraut Western.  Rather than the spaghetti scenery of conventional Westerns, we have WWII scenery.  A much-revised WWII.  In Tarantino’s war, the Basterds are a band of Jewish-American soldiers deep behind enemy lines.  Their leader is Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt).  Their goal: to terrorize the Nazis the same way the Nazis terrorized Europe.  Raine orders his men to scalp a hundred Nazis each.  And to relish doing so.  (They will even get a stab at Hitler.)

Hunting these fearless Americans is SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz).  Landa is infamous for his cruelty even amongst big-screen Nazis.  People call him the “Jew Hunter.”  Waltz’s character seeks out Jews across Axis territory and executes them — on the spot.  Early in the film, one Jew escapes from Colonel Landa.  Shoshana, played by French actress Melanie Lauren, concocts a revenge plot of her own.  And the doings of all these characters will eventually intersect in explosive ways.

Colonel Landa is the stand-out character of the film (Christoph Waltz won a best-supporting Oscar for his performance).  His power is in his language, verbally pummeling everyone around him.  Command of language is a mighty hand. He humiliates others with his multilingual proficiency, doing laps around them, backing them into corners.  Landa also knows the power of composure.  His self-awareness and control are absolute.  A look, a point, a word are momentous.  This is a mighty villain.

Is he too evil to be human?  “Nazi ain’t got no humanity,” says Raine.  Neither does Tarantino’s film, actually, and not that Inglourious Basterds needs humanity.  The Basterds gave up their humanity when they took to scalping and snickering about it.  The view from outside allows the Basterds to teach us a little about ourselves.

For instance, that vengeance is motivation enough for anything.  The real-life Jewish commandos of the war blast the film.  Its depiction of their exploits is outlandish.  Even so, the commandos agree that they slept with dreams of sweet revenge.  Even as they infiltrated the enemy lines.  The Basterds’ behavior accurately reflects revenge fantasies of Allied Semitic contingents.  These Nazis were the ones killing their people.  They sure would have liked to brutalize them in return.  Little things like the tactical and practical impeded them.  So did their humanity— what the Nazis lacked.  Here, the Basterds have a mercilessness to rival any National Socialist.

Inglourious Basterds has a high quotient of quotability.  Tarantino eschews moral depth in favor of damn good lines.  And his actors deliver these lines damn well.  They often find themselves in perverse situations.  Not just funny, these situations capture the scope of wartime cruelty.  The screenplay is replete with wanton destruction— big lies— fallacious logic— just like the war itself.  However, unlike with the war, you can laugh with the Basterds.  It’s a unique comedy of errors.  Here, very intelligent, very capable, and very suave characters commit the errors.  They are the best at what they do, but they, too, make mistakes.

Director Quentin Tarantino on the set of Inglourious Basterds.

The “Italian Escorts” scene is about one of those mistakes.  It ranks among the great moments in cinema hilarity.  Aldo & Co. get to a Goebbels premier incognito, as Italian filmmakers.  The Basterds earnestly project bona fide Italian heritage as they see it.  Yes, obvious stereotypes.  Painfully obvious stereotypes.  Landa sees through the guises.  The SS (serial sadist?) agent subjects the “Italians” to a torturous interview in their professed language.  Landa again utterly crushes adversaries with his mastery of the tongue.

Tarantino uses Samuel L. Jackson as a narrator twice in the film.  This isn’t usage enough to justify his presence in the first place.  Then again, this is Tarantino.  If he wants to put Sammy L.’s voice in his baby, he’ll do just that.

Tarantino is his own brand.  Like previous efforts, Basterds bends genres.  The director includes moments of understated aplomb.  He alternates between his trademark killing sequences and these moments of deliberation.  Even the more lyrical moments are rending with suppressed violence.  But violence is what Tarantino does.  He dresses it, gives it form, and makes it a picture.