Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film bares nothing in common to “The Inglorious Bastards” except it’s similarly spelled title, but this is still a movie worth watching if nothing else.
Watching the film, it’s easy to see why QT would respond so highly to it. Like the Spaghetti Westerns of which he is such a fan, “The Inglorious Bastards” is a “macaroni combat” film. It has an entirely American (or also German) cast and yet an Italian director and writing team.
It’s also a very well made B-movie cult film, loaded with violent, yet PG-13 rated action and very little overarching plot. Four American soldiers set to be court marshaled, a renegade lieutenant and a stranded German soldier all try and make their way to the Switzerland border before they are enlisted for a secret mission after killing the original team responsible for the mission.
Watching it, I was impressed by just how good the action scenes were. Sparing are the shot/reverse shot action scenes that dominate so many war movies, instead replaced by combat that is constantly in full view, and what’s more is often stealthy and creative rather than just macho and violent.
And yet the film is ridiculous enough to be a barrel of fun. One character is the trouble-making thief and forger, and when another soldier asks him how long he’s been in military jail, he takes off his helmet to reveal hair going down to his shoulders. And that’s later topped when a group of naked German women bathing and playing in a river end up grabbing machine guns and shooting at the Bastards when they see the black guy in their team.
No, it’s not “killin’ natzees,” but it is just good old killing nazis.