A Bastards work is never done...

And neither is Quentin Tarantino's in my opinion. While I loved his latest opus "Inglourious Bastards" I must say I walked out having thoroughly enjoyed it and yet still wanting more. For a flick with their name in the title, there is shockingly little of the Bastards in the film.

Here is what we were promised in the trailers; The Bastards, Jewish-American soldiers sent behind enemy lines in WWII France, are carving a bloody swath through the Nazi ranks. The Nazi high command are going to debut a new propaganda film at a small French theater run by a Jewish woman in hiding who has her own plans of revenge for the murder of her family. Both forces of good are hurtling toward each other, totally oblivious of the other.

Here's what Tarantino got right: Character development- Not even necessarily for all the Bastards. Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine doesn't get more complex than the typically rugged, battle hardened, blood thirsty WWII soldier you've seen in a lot of other movies. The two Bastards you get the best feel for are Eli Roth's Donnie Donowitz and Til Schweider's Hugo Stiglitz. Roth's character is nicknamed The Bear Jew by the Germans and it is whispered in secret that he is a golem, a vengeful, indestructible spirit of revenge.

And one can hardly blame them, the delight he takes in cracking Nazi heads with his notched baseball bat is slightly unnerving. His thick Boston accent was dead on if a little over the top but the best part is watching him in the final reel as the Bastards' plan stumbles but doesn't fall. Even as certain doom looms around him, he relishes the bloodthirsty joy of the slaughter for any Nazi he can get his hands on.

And Schweider's Stiglitz is even more fascinating. Not one of the original Bastards, Stiglitz is an SS officer who goes on a killing spree one night, wasting 13 Nazi officers before he is caught. Sprung from prison by the Bastards he takes part in one of the longest but best tension building scenes I've witnessed in years (but we'll get to that later). He's an enigma to figure out and that's why I dig him.

Introduced, albeit briefly, in the opening scene of the flick arguably THE main character is Shosanna Dreyfus who is playing amazingly by the intoxicating 26-year-old French actress Melanie Laurent. Never hear of her before, am now in love with her. Her performance is one of two in the flick that should be up for an academy award.


The other should belong to Christopher Waltz and his portrayal of "The Jew Hunter" Hans Landa. NEVER have I seen a more devious villain on the big screen. So sure and content in what's he's doing. So amoral in his task and yet so damn good at it. Waltz steals the show clean away from everyone else in the flick.


That brings us to the second thing I love about this flick (now that I've ranted on characters long enough). The tension building. There are three big scenes that almost make you want to scream for the action to begin, not because you're bored but because the suspense makes you want to puke. Without giving away too much, the opening sequence featuring The Jew Hunter at work is one and the big scene in the theater at the end is the big another. The third is two thirds of the way through in a basement pub where two of the Bastards and one British operative are meeting a double agent. What could go wrong you ask? Well as Aldo Raine puts it "You want to know what the tactical disadvantage is to fighting in a basement? Well first it's a fucking basement."

I'll leave you with this nifty/ ironic trailer for the flick in German. You can view the English version here.