‘Inglourious Basterds’ Reviews Say it’s Glorious

‘Inglourious Basterds’ gets rave reviews

If you’re trying to figure out what to spend your money on at the box office this weekend, “Inglourious Basterds” reviews indicate that it’s definitely worth the $10 or so for a movie ticket. Starring Brad Pitt and directed by Quentin Tarantino, who has a stalwartly loyal and large band of followers, “Inglourious Basterds” is destined to be a box office smash.

Add in the war element and a gigantic budget, much bigger than any installment loan you could imagine, and this film simply can’t lose. It’ll make nine digits for sure. Here’s what some critics at Rotten Tomatoes had to say in their “Inglourious Basterds” reviews:

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

Back in his days as the geek god of clerks at Manhattan Beach Video Archives, Quentin Tarantino must have looked at all those World War II movies, especially the ones about plots to kill Hitler, and realized what was wrong: everybody knows the ending. Bad guys lose. Hitler died in his bunker. Where’s the suspense? Where’s the ambiguity? Most films about the war treat the historical record as sacred, which often serves as an excuse for lofty moral judgments.

Only a few bold souls created alternative versions, like the 1963 film It Happened Here, in which Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo imagined a Nazi-occupied Britain. Tarantino’s rewrite is more brazen still, with a twist that’s pure Hollywood. Hitler will die where? In a movie theater. And who will kill him? Some Jews.

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

When a man makes a movie this good, you can forgive him the occasional indulgence.

Aside from the name, in fact, Tarantino’s WWII adventure indicates an undeniable new maturity. A fairy tale about the infinite power of film, it boasts all his swaggering trademarks: rapid-fire dialogue, gleeful violence, endless cultural references. But it’s the sharp-eyed deliberation that makes the greatest impact.

The terrific opening, for example, does feature a hailstorm of bullets. What you’ll remember best, though, is the haunted silence of actor Denis Menochet, playing a French farmer accused of harboring Jews.

Rafer Guzman, Newsday

The Nazis are the victims, the Jews their slaughterers. The score is part spaghetti Western, part French chanson. Brad Pitt looks like Clark Gable but talks like Forrest Gump. And during the final act of Quentin Tarantino’s wildly unpredictable World War II epic, “Inglourious Basterds,” you’ll hear David Bowie’s 1982 theme song to “Cat People.”

Well, why not? Tarantino has made a career out of breaking rules and redefining conventions, turning torture into entertainment in “Reservoir Dogs,” setting new standards for dialogue with “Pulp Fiction” and transforming B-movie schlock into art with “Grindhouse” (codirected with Robert Rodriguez).

Tarantino is the most fearlessly inventive filmmaker alive – but we knew that. And while “Inglourious Basterds” is never anything less than ridiculously entertaining, it’s nothing Tarantino hasn’t done before.

Inspired by Enzo G. Castellari’s similarly titled 1978 cheapie (with the proper spelling of both words), the movie combines several nifty ideas into one almost-story.

John Hartl, the Seattle Times

“Once upon a time,” Quentin Tarantino’s new movie begins. He isn’t kidding.

Any relationship to historical fact is quickly blown away as Tarantino feverishly imagines a plot to burn down a Parisian theater with a literally captive audience including Hitler and other key Nazis. The attempt to rewrite history is as absurd as it is oddly exhilarating.

Indeed, what Tarantino calls a “revenge fantasy” against Hitler offers a kind of mirror image to Tom Cruise’s recent “Valkyrie.” While both movies are “what if” tales, Cruise sticks to the facts about the attempts on Hitler’s life, while Tarantino cares only about staging an attack on the Führer that will prematurely end World War II.