‘Basterds’ showcases Tarantino’s quirks

Inglourious Basterds, like most of Quentin Tarantino’s movies, is a death-filled, genre-mixing masterpiece. Unlike most of Tarantino’s films, however, it flips history on its head and turns a rewritten demise of Nazi Germany into a neo-noir-spaghetti-western-turned-war-film-revenge-flick that is as satirical as it is high octane.

The movie follows several developing plots to kill top Nazi leaders at a film premiere in Paris during the height of World War II. The protagonists are a rag-tag team of Jewish-American soldiers that only writer/director Tarantino could concoct. Led by a wily, Southern-accented Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the Basterds — which include The Office’s B.J. Novak and Freaks and Geeks alum Samm Levine — race through Nazi-occupied France wielding “apache tactics,” ambushing uniformed Germans and scalping the dead bodies.

Pitt is perfectly cast as Lt. Raine and elements from several of the actor’s previous characters — like Fight Club’s organizer Tyler Durden, Burn After Reading’s clueless Chad Feldheimer and Snatch’s pikey Mickey “One Punch” O’Neil — show through in his portrayal. With a blend of brutality and dark humor evocative of previously explored Tarantino troops like in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, Raine’s crew is a hybrid of previous creations.

To counter Tarantino’s harsh-yet-likeable men-on-a-mission archetype, the filmmaker juxtaposes his screenwriting fantasies against the harsh reality of World War II. Using real events such as D-Day to frame the film in a proper historical context, Basterds lunges headfirst into the delicate subject of Nazi Germany and, unlike Mel Brooks’ The Producers — whose flamboyant Führer is an obvious Hitler-mocking allusion — takes the task of depicting the axis leaders seriously and without regard for the easily offended.

Historically accurate Nazi regalia is rampant throughout the film and oversized giant red wall banners bearing 30-foot tall swastikas hang in many scenes. Tarantino cast native German-speaking actors for all Nazi roles, but despite appearances by Hitler in a velvet cape and Joseph Goebbels’ sex face, it is fictional Col. Hans Landa — also called “the Jew Hunter” — who stands out as the movie’s main antagonist. Played by Austrian-born Christoph Waltz, Landa breathes new fear into the Nazi with hypnotizing small talk, a sinister grin and piercing eye contact that forces his victims into submission.

Tarantino movies are often overhyped, drawing viewers in more with A-list talent and excessively aesthetic death scenes than actual enjoyability. But Basterds is the Tarantino movie for non-Tarantino fans. Followers of his previous films will easily spot the filmmaker’s touch in drawn-out-for-suspense dialogues and hard-to-watch moments — like when horror-porn director Eli Roth (acting as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, “the Bear Jew”) blows open a Nazi officer’s head with a Louisville Slugger. But most of Tarantino’s influence is more subtle, hidden in character names and scenes which pay homage to his favorite B-list movies.

More than 10 years in the making, Basterds is Tarantino’s magnum opus. It eschews typical Tarantino gore overload — well, some of it — for foreign language dialogue and authentic Nazi uniforms, but still retains the director’s unique brand of violence with a smirk. It rewrites film genres as much as it reimagines history.

With more last-minute plot twists than One Night at McCool’s, Basterds is Tarantino’s thesis statement to the essay of his repertoire.