Inglourious Basterds

Rating: 3/4 (Take out the Basterds and it is a fine cinematic experience!)

Having watched my first Quentin Tarantino movie, Inglourious Basterds, I can safely conclude that this man is part genius and part insane! The fictional movie is set in Nazi occupied France, where Jews are being extracted and sent for execution with surgical precision by a Colonel Hans Landa. A girl Shoshanna escapes from one such execution and hides away in Paris with a new name and identity. Meanwhile, a team of Nazi hunters from USA called the Basterds drop into France with the sole mission of killing SS officers and soldiers using brutal methods. The paths and motives of the Basterds, Shoshanna and Hans Landa intersect at a grand movie opening in Paris which is attended by the Führer himself.

First the praise. There are several pieces in this movie which are supreme cinematic experiences. The opening act between the French farmer and Hans Landa for example. It is shot with such precision, eye for detail, tension, entertaining dialogue and expression that it transforms a simple interview into a lip smacking delight for any movie lover! Inglourious Basterds is full of such brilliant edge-of-the-seat compositions that I barely noticed the insane 02:30 hour length of the movie. Tarantino is helped with some magnificent acting by Christoph Waltz (playing Hans Landa), he deserves accolades for his performance here. He electrifies and enthralls in his every single scene.

And then there is the bad. The Basterds themselves! Brad Pitt is horrible with his accent and pomposity. And the gore, my God, the gore! In a super-slick-ly produced movie, do we really need to see scene after scene of the Basterds cutting apart bloody scalps of Nazis off their bloody skull? Does anyone enjoy watching in horrifying detail a Basterd (The Bear Jew) beat an alive Nazi to bloody pulp? Surely, the insane part of Tarantino’s brain is at work here! The Basterds and their atrocious activities jar horribly with the flawless rest of the movie. Dear Tarantino, I would have rather enjoyed your Inglourious Basterds without the Basterds themselves.

Fight Club

Saw the movie Fight Club. Starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, it’s based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Edward Norton plays the narrator (whose name is never revealed) who has insomnia. He discovers that attending support groups helps him sleep, so he starts doing that regularly. He comes across Marla, who is also faking like him to visit support groups. After he finds her, the support groups no longer help and his insomnia comes back. On a flight he runs into Tyler (Brad Pitt), an eccentric character who manufactures soap. After his flat catches fire, he meets up with Tyler and moves into his rundown house. He and Tyler start having fun by beating each other up. When other people also show an interest to join in this activity, he and Tyler formalize the underground organization by calling it Fight Club and giving it rules. Soon, it grows very popular and Tyler starts giving out assignments to its members under the name Project Mayhem. These increasingly result in hurting people and destroying property. The narrator begins to withdraw from Taylor’s violent activities but can’t. When he finds out that Project Mayhem involves a plan to cause massive destruction, he tries to find out the plan from Tyler and stop it. Who is Tyler whom the narrator can’t seem to escape from? Can he stop the plan?

If you’ve seen the movie, you know the surprise element. Actually, there are loads of clues all along indicating who Tyler really is. So, yeah, the story is interesting. Pitt and Norton have delivered neat performances. The cinematography matches up well with the gritty feel of the movie. The music score by the Dust Brothers is catchy. The only thing I found disconcerting is the violence. It gets quite excessive and is a major turn-off. Except for that, this is a neat movie.

Mr. And Mrs. Smith

Rating: 2/4 (Average fare)

The star couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the protagonists of Mr. And Mrs. Smith. They are both undercover assassins who are working for different agencies. But, each does not know about the other’s work and is keeping it a secret. They discover that soon and are assigned to kill each other off! This could have been a good comedy action flick, but has been ruined by a pointless plot and boring dialogues. Even the ooomph factor of the two stars does not save this movie.