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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-12-07
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 147 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Although Quentin Tarantino has cherished Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 "macaroni" war flick The Inglorious Bastards for most of his film-geek life, his own Inglourious Basterds is no remake. Instead, as hinted by the Tarantino-esque misspelling, this is a lunatic fantasia of WWII, a brazen re-imagining of both history and the behind-enemy-lines war film subgenre. There's a Dirty Not-Quite-Dozen of mostly Jewish commandos, led by a Tennessee good ol' boy named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who reckons each warrior owes him one hundred Nazi scalps--and he means that literally. Even as Raine's band strikes terror into the Nazi occupiers of France, a diabolically smart and self-assured German officer named Landa (Christoph Waltz) is busy validating his own legend as "The Jew Hunter." Along the way, he wipes out the rural family of a grave young girl (Melanie Laurent) who will reappear years later in Paris, dreaming of vengeance on an epic scale.

Now, this isn't one more big-screen comic book. As the masterly opening sequence reaffirms, Tarantino is a true filmmaker, with a deep respect for the integrity of screen space and the tension that can accumulate in contemplating two men seated at a table having a polite conversation. IB reunites QT with cinematographer Robert Richardson (who shot Kill Bill), and the colors and textures they serve up can be riveting, from the eerie red-hot glow of a tabletop in Adolf Hitler's den, to the creamy swirl of a Parisian pastry in which Landa parks his cigarette. The action has been divided, Pulp Fiction-like, into five chapters, each featuring at least one spellbinding set-piece. It's testimony to the integrity we mentioned that Tarantino can lock in the ferocious suspense of a scene for minutes on end, then explode the situation almost faster than the eye and ear can register, and then take the rest of the sequence to a new, wholly unanticipated level within seconds.

Again, be warned: This is not your "Greatest Generation," Saving Private Ryan WWII. The sadism of Raine and his boys can be as unsavory as the Nazi variety; Tarantino's latest cinematic protégé, Eli (director of Hostel) Roth, is aptly cast as a self-styled "golem" fond of pulping Nazis with a baseball bat. But get past that, and the sometimes disconcerting shifts to another location and another set of characters, and the movie should gather you up like a growing floodtide. Tarantino told the Cannes Film Festival audience that he wanted to show "Adolf Hitler defeated by cinema." Cinema wins. --Richard T. Jameson

DVD Description
The new film from director Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds, begins in German-occupied France, where Soshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Soshanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organises a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemies as "The Basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of the Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Soshanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own...

DVD Extras:
Extended & Alternated Scenes

• Lunch with Goebbels – Extended Version (7 mins)
• La Lousianne Card Game – Extended Version (2 mins)
• Nation’s Pride Begins – Alternate Version (2 mins)

Nation’s Pride – Full Feature (6 mins)

Trailers

• Teaser (1:43)
• Domestic Trailer (2:21)
• International Trailer (2:07)
• Japanese Trailer (1:15)

Synopsis
A group of hardened Nazi killers stalk their prey in Nazi-occupied France as a Jewish cinema owner plots to take down top-ranking SS officers during the official premiere of a high-profile German propaganda film. As far as Lieutenant Aldo Raine (aka Aldo 'the Apache', Brad Pitt) -- is concerned, the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. Raine's mission is to strike fear into the heart of Adolf Hitler by brutally murdering as many goose-steppers as possible, or die trying. In order to accomplish that goal, Lt. Raine recruits a ruthless team of cold-blooded killers known as 'The Basterds', which includes baseball-bat-wielding Bostonian Sgt. Donnie Donowitz (aka 'The Bear Jew', Eli Roth) and steely psychopath Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), among others. When the Basterds' secret rendezvous with turncoat German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) goes awry, they learn that the Nazis will be staging the French premiere of 'The Nation's Pride', a rousing propaganda film based on the exploits of German hero Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), at a modest theatre owned by Jewish cinephile Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), posing as a Gentile after the brutal murder of her family by the ruthless Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). As the Basterds hatch an explosive plan to take out as many Nazis as possible at the premiere, they remain completely oblivious to the fact that Shoshanna, too, longs to bring the Third Reich to its knees, and that she's willing to sacrifice her beloved theatre in the process.

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Customer Reviews

That's-a bingo!
I loved the earlier Tarantino films such as PULP FICTION, RESEVOIR DOGS, KILL BILL 1 & 2, FROM DUSK TIL DAWN and JACKIE BROWN but was really put off by the unique director after his terrible Grindhouse double-feature - DEATHPROOF and PLANET TERROR., so when this was announced I was a little reluctant to see it but I really enjoy World War 2 films, I was a fan of Tarantino until recently and it did have a good cast and the critics reviews all appeared positive so I gave it a go. Well I saw it this week and I cannot believe I ever had any doubt in my mind that this would be good as it was brilliant! From the opening scene the clever dialogue and surprising twists had me completely engrossed - this is a long film (nearly two and a half hours) but not for one minute did it drag as I was enjoying it so much. The acting is superb - Brad Pitt was as good as you'd expect playing the Nazi-killing Aldo Raine, but the performance that stood out the most for me was from Christoph Waltz as the sly, hilarious and very ruthless Hans Landa aka "The Jew Hunter" who was absolutely brilliant.

I highly recommend this movie, although there are a few very graphically violent scenes (not as many as I expected though) and it is a strongly character and dialogue-driven film so may not appeal to everyone, I however thought it was great.

Y'all forgot Rudolf Hess
With its unwieldy title and its WWII setting, this film promised to be vintage Tarantino. I'm sure I wasn't the only one counting down the hours til the release of this film, slightly concerned that it might disappoint.

But disappoint it didn't - if anything this is Tarantino's best film yet.

Acting: 10/10 - Mélanie Laurent's Shosanna is pure class. No other word for it. Christoph Waltz's just about but not quite OTT Hans Landa is also class.

Violence: 8/10 - the film is just a little bit light on violence, but when it gets violent, it really does so with style.

Cinematography: 11/10 - Peerless. Stunning.

Dialogue: 10/10 - wisely shies away from soundbite stuff and lets the characters speak for themselves. The scene where Hans orders an Apfelstrudel for Shoasanna is a case in point. It's all in the faces, not the words.

Script: 10/10 the action moves along just fine, and with a micro-attention span like mine, it's not often I can watch a film almost two and a half hours long without getting bored. If anything, the film is too short. I think it could easily have been 270 minutes running time - certain chapters (e.g. the one concerning the group whose name is in the title) go by way too quick.

No criticisms of this one. I like the way it conflates genres and styles and yet still coheres perfectly: bits of it are Hollywood, other bits are proper European arthouse, and some bits even have the feel of a Belgian lager advert.

All in all - definitely one of the best films of 2009. Already looking forward to going along to the cinema for a second viewing.

"Y'know, this may be my best work yet"
Quentin Tarantino has never been a man to let reality get in the way of telling a good story. For all its coolness and hip dialogue, even his justly celebrated Pulp Fiction has a sense of unreality about, I mean, no one really talks like that, no one. And with his latest, Tarantino has taken this sense of unreality to a whole new level.
When we first enter Tarantino's new reality, we are quickly informed that this is occupied France, once upon a time. A young Jewish girl Soshanna Dreyfus witnesses the execution of her family at the hands of SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), but she manages to escape. Fast forward a few years and Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is organising a group of Jewish soldiers to operate behind enemy lines, striking terror into the heart of the Nazi war machine. Nicknamed "the Basterds" by their foes, Raine's men rapidly become a unit to be feared, and is chosen by the high command to take part in a top secret operation. "The Basterds" join German actress and undercover agent Bridgit Von Hammersmarck on a mission to destroy the German high command. Their job is to blow up a cinema in Paris where the Nazi elite are attending a movie premiere of Goebbels latest piece of propaganda. However, the owner of the cinema is the now adult Soshanna (Melanie Laurent) and she has her own plans for revenge.
With its preposterous plot and World War 2 setting, you may be expecting a no holds barred action movie, but instead what you get is a movie that is very hard to categorise, and that is only to its credit. Constantly subverting the viewer's expectations, the film is by turns dramatic, violent, action packed and wickedly funny, often all of them in very quick succession, but the one thing it is not is a war film, Tarantino merely uses the setting to tell his tale.
And what a tale it is, so utterly over the top it takes a while to realise that it's a joke, but once you do get the point that this is all about the director thumbing his nose at convention, it becomes so much more. With a number of scenes played utterly straight for dramatic tension, in particular the opening interrogation sequence and the following brutally casual execution of the fugitive family, and certain scenes of atrocious violence played for laughs (witness the torture sequence of German prisoners by "The Basterds") it takes a while to get a handle on the film, but Tarantino has littered the film with clues (the opening title sequence, the use of incidental music in a less than incidental fashion, one of the characters in the film being a film critic), and once you get the joke, it becomes very very funny, in that darkly comedic style of Fight Club, where you find yourself laughing in the face of adversity.
And not only is it funny and at times so verbally dextrous it is almost impossible to keep up, it is also littered with superb performance, both comedic and dramatic. Brad Pitt gave a hint of his genuine comedic talents in fight Club and later in Burn After Reading, but here he really hits his stride, delivering an at times rousingly funny performance as the larger than life Aldo Raine. Smaller performances of no less appeal litter the film, including Michael Fassbender putting his best stiff upper lip forward as Archie Hicox, Eli Roth as the baseball bat wielding lunatic Donny Donowitz, the Bronson like brilliance of Til Schwieger as Stiglitz (who gets an outrageously brilliant introduction within the film) and Daniel Bruhl as Private Fredrick Zoller, a hero of the Nazi regime and the subject of the film within a film. But if the film belongs to anyone, it is a straight out fight between Melanie Laurent as Soshanna and Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa. Soshanna is a superb creation, frighteningly believable in both her tougher and tender moments, surviving as a tribute to her deceased family whilst at the same time burning with a desire for revenge that eventually extinguishes her desire for self preservation. But rivalling Laurents performance is Waltz as Landa, a sophisticated sadist with a genuine love of his work, even though that work is hunting down and destroying the enemies of the Nazi regime. By turns mannered and menacing, he is an intelligent, quick witted man who is always doing what is best for himself at any given time, and in the hands of Waltz he is a murderer who comes for you with a smile on his face.
The film is very funny as I have said before, but that's not to say that bad things don't happen, often to good people, but that's the nature of the tale that Tarantino is telling, after all this is war, albeit Tarantino's highly stylised war. Don't watch this film expecting anything approaching historical accuracy, but watch it instead as Tarantino intended it to be viewed, with your tongue firmly in your cheek.