Very good. Genuinely very good. But like any Tarantino film, it does not jive with my attention span of a goldfish. Watched this in three sittings. No regrets.

The Historical Stuff

Almost none of this happened. Hitler did not die in a movie theater. Nobody scalped Nazis across France. The Bear Jew is not real.

But there were actual Jewish commandos. Churchill put together a secret unit called X Troop in 1942. About 87 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who had to erase their identities, pick fake British names, and train to become some of the deadliest soldiers in the war. They hit Sword Beach on D-Day. One guy rescued his own parents from a concentration camp.

There was also Operation Greenup, where the OSS dropped two Jewish refugees and a Nazi deserter into Austria to gather intelligence. One of them got captured and tortured by the Gestapo for days. Never gave up his team.

None of them got to kill Hitler. Tarantino let them.

Historically accurate? No. Satisfying? Incredibly.

The Italian Scene

Three American soldiers pretend to be Italian filmmakers. It is immediately obvious that they only speak New York Italian.

Brad Pitt saying "Gorlami" with his whole chest while Christoph Waltz just stares at him is cinema. Waltz drags it out, makes them repeat their names, savors how badly they're failing. You're laughing but also terrified because Landa obviously knows.

"Bon-jor-no."

Lost it.

The Brutality

This movie is mean. It wants you to feel things and it's not subtle about it.

The opening scene is 20 minutes of two men talking at a table about milk and rats. You're sweating by the end of it. You know what's going to happen. The movie knows you know. It makes you wait anyway.

The violence, when it comes, is ugly. The Bear Jew doesn't just kill that officer, he obliterates him. The theater fire isn't just a fire, it's hundreds of people burning alive while Shosanna's face laughs at them from the screen. Brutal and cathartic and kind of disturbing that it's cathartic.

Tarantino is emotionally manipulating you the entire runtime. I respect the craft even when I'm being puppeteered.

The One Thing I Would Change

I wish the theater fire had failed.

The movie gives you this perfect revenge fantasy where the Jews get to kill Hitler themselves. Great. But what if it didn't work?

The fire starts, chaos erupts, Hitler escapes. Now he's paranoid. Reclusive. He knows someone tried to burn him alive. The Basterds realize they weren't the only ones gunning for him because Shosanna had her own plan and it almost worked. Now they have to deal with a Hitler who's harder to reach and navigate other factions who want him dead for their own reasons.

Real history is full of failed assassination attempts. Operation Valkyrie, the bomb in the briefcase, dozens of plots that got close but didn't land. Leaning into that "we tried and failed, now what" energy could've made the stakes feel more desperate.

But I get why Tarantino didn't do that. The whole point is the fantasy. Letting them win is the thesis.

Still. Would've been interesting.

Christoph Waltz

Not writing a whole essay but I need to acknowledge this performance.

Tarantino thought the role was "unplayable." Almost shelved the movie because he couldn't find anyone who could pull it off. Waltz walked into the audition, did the scene, and Tarantino said he "gave me my movie back."

Waltz won Best Actor at Cannes, then the Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, and Oscar. First actor to ever win an Oscar for a Tarantino film. Three years later he'd win another one for Django.

Hans Landa is terrifying because he's smart and he knows it. Treats hunting Jews like a puzzle game. No ideology in that the swastika means nothing to him. He just wants to win. When Germany starts losing, he switches sides without hesitation. Perfect villain because he's not evil for evil's sake. Morality just doesn't factor into his calculations. Giving the "Morals don't pay" attitude.

"That's a bingo!" lives in my head rent free.

Final Thoughts

Inglourious Basterds is a revenge fantasy dressed up as a war movie. Tarantino asking "what if the victims got to end it themselves?" and then letting them do it as violently as possible.

Not history. What history should have been.

8 Big Claps. Would watch again in multiple sittings.