It's one of my wife's favorites, and a few folks mentioned liking it, but I absolutely
loathed Inglourious Basterds. I couldn't figure out if was supposed to be dark comedy, satire, or an actual war movie. If they wanted the feel of a '60s classic war flick, they got it right as far as cheesy acting and convoluted plot, but missed by a mile in the watchability factor. Wife had to sit me down on three separate occasions to watch the whole thing, I couldn't get through more than about 1/3 to half of it before I had to leave the room. The last time, I was reading a book and just mostly listening to see if it would get good.
The 'Cracked' article 'Movie heroes who actually made things worse pretty much exactly sume up my feelings on how 'well written' this movie is.
The Plot:
Brad Pitt and his Jewish commandos rampage through World War II Europe, killing the tulips off of every Nazi they find.
They catch wind of an upcoming film screening that Hitler and the rest of the Nazi higher-ups will be attending and concoct a shoddy plan to infiltrate and destroy them.
Wait, are we going to try to complain about a plan to kill Hitler?
The Problem:
Yep. What they don't realize is that the screening is already a brilliant plan to assassinate the Nazi leaders that would've gone off flawlessly even if--in fact, especially if--they had just stayed out of it.
The lady running the theater, Shoshanna, is actually a French Jew in disguise, seeking revenge for her murdered family at the hands of the S.S. She manages to fool all the higher ups, including Hitler and Goebbels, into gathering together in a single building which she intends to seal up tighter than a pickle jar and burn to the ground.
The only way it could have possibly gone wrong is if some absolute moron showed up at the reception and began acting absurdly suspicious.
When the Basterds show up, trying to fake speaking Italian even though they barely know a word of it, Nazi superman Colonel Landa spots them immediately and hauls them out of the theater. Only the fact that Landa decides at that moment to turn on his superiors (and let the attack happen) prevents him from derailing the whole thing.
Meanwhile, two of the basterds remain in the theater with bombs strapped to their legs, which also proves totally unnecessary since the doors are already locked and the fire is already started. Hitler and his cronies had no way out, and the place was about to turn into a blast furnace. The two basterds essentially blow themselves up for no reason.
Brad Pitt's clumsy intervention allows the murderous Landa to escape certain burnery death and make a deal with the American government for his freedom. Brad Pitt gives Landa a forehead scar, true, but this hardly seems adequate punishment for being an instrumental part of mass genocide seeing as how facial reconstructive surgery has been around since WWI and unsightly skin blemishes can be covered up by strategically placed headwear.
If They'd Just Stayed Away:
Not only would the Nazi brass have died, but Landa too. And the two basterds, along with their actress friend (who gets strangled by Landa) would have lived to see the end of the war. Everybody's happy.
Yup.
