Review of the Reviews

        For me, there is no greater masterpiece than Inglorious Basterds. It marvels up with Quentin Tarantino’s best works such as Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained. The film takes on an alternate ending of World War II thanks to the revenge-savvy plots by the characters played by Brad Pitt and Melanie Laurent. Yet, although my personal view on the movie as being nearly perfect, critics scored the movie an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is what a few of them had to say:

        Tom Charity’s review of the movie on CNN.com, “Review: ‘Basterds’ is quite Glorious”, was a compliment to Tarantino’s work with some slight criticism. The review opens with a reference from Spike Milligan, a comedian who wrote about his adventures in WWII in a memoir called Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall. This satirical introduction, as supported by Charity, embodies the film. He relates that Tarantino had Milligan’s same “chutzpah” as to his account of WWII. Charity goes on to talk about the characters’ roles in the film while, at the same time, giving a brief overview of the plot. Charity holds many of the cast members in high accord, praising Laurent as “excellent”. Charity pokes fun at Tarantino in a sarcastic way, stating that “only in a Tarantino movie do you find heroic critics”. This light and sarcastic tone supports a light-hearted view on the movie by Charity. He believes that it is well-structured and a unique approach to the war movie. Although he criticizes the writing to be long in parts and maybe a little too structured in parts, he finally praises the film as “still one of the best of [Tarantino’s] generation”.

        If Tarantino’s envision of Inglorious Basterds would be summarized in a phrase, it would be from Charity’s review of “‘Inglorious Basterds’ doesn't pretend to give us the war as it was, but as it should have been”. The film is blatantly changing the facts of WWII. The biggest one, spoiler alert, is that Hitler and most of the high command get killed in a movie theater thanks to a revengeful French Jew. Yet, the ridiculous nature of the movie’s plot makes the watcher want that to be how history turned out.

        On the negative side of the critics is Matthew Oshinsky of The Star Ledger. His review, “ ‘Inglorious Basterds’ Move Review: Pitt Leads Tarantino’s Nazi-hunters into a Historical Farce”, focuses on the flaws more on the film in general. He starts his review with a brief overview of the film that segues into how the film as a whole has a feeling of “disconnect”. He criticizes Tarantino as a director who focuses too much on movies about movies and how he fails to organize a morally brilliant movie. Oshinsky’s argument focuses on how Tarantino also does not take into account the moral implications of his film and how he portrays history. He believes that the brutal attacks on the Germans takes away from the heros of the movie and of history. Oshinsky also criticizes the score of the film, saying that the mixture of different generations of music “disorients” the watcher as to which time period the film is focusing on. The overall criticism of the review bashes not only the movie, but Tarantino as a director.

        Although the review does not take into account the purposeful nature of Tarantino’s work, there is one phrase that I do agree with: “It is a movie about war movies”. Tarantino takes the usual war movie and puts his own twist on it by incorporating an obviously fictional take on war. The organization of the story makes the film seem more like a novel than a film, taking the film to the next level of war.

        If I had never seen this film before, I would listen more to Charity’s review. He includes references used in the film which gives the review more credibility whereas Oshinsky’s review sounds more like a hateful stab at Tarantino. By including this evidence and including the intertextuality of the characters and their relation to the story, Charity’s review seems more thought out and criticized intelligently. Charity also criticizes the movie in his review, also. This mixture of both sides of the coin helps build the validity of his review. By taking a more neutral stance, Charity’s review can be looked on more as a source of knowledge where Oshinsky’s review is more of a venting essay about Tarantino and his work as a whole. Therefore, I would listen to Charity’s advice about the movie over Oshinsky’s.

        If I were to write a review for Inglorious Basterds, it would probably end up being more than a page long. This film is brilliantly crafted and the acting is just flawless. I would make sure to include the opening scene since there are so many subtle and disturbing elements and symbols to it that one has to re-watch it multiple times to pick up on what Tarantino was trying to say.

I would include the cinematography of the film since Tarantino focuses on very simple and seemingly unimportant things at times in the movie, such as milk and creme. I would also talk about the use of the chapters and subtitles throughout the film. This puts a unique feeling on the movie since there are clear distinctions on when the story shifts points of view that eventually meet up in the end. There would not be much that I would leave out. The only criticism I have is when a German soldier who recently became a father gets shot. Other than that, this film is a must-see.