I like short movie reviews, so I’ll distill this down to the most important aspects.  This movie is essentially a drama, with some good comedy, and some of the best dialogue and acting I’ve ever seen.  The opening scene has a famous Nazi, titled, “The Jew Hunter”, Colonel Hans Landa, who is played by the fantastic Christoph Waltz.  This first scene sees Landa searching a dairy farm for jews in hiding.  As the audience becomes aware that the jews might be found, the music is queued and plays perfectly with the scene, which caused body-tensing in probably every person in the theater.  Some of the scenes in the movie, like this one, can be very intense, despite the fact that most of the intensity comes from the drama, not weapons, and shows that good directing (Quentin Tarantino, who also did the writing) can make the threat of violence more intense than depicted violence.   Tarantino’s writing and directing seem to be much improved.

He’s not a Basterd, but he sure is a Bastard.  Colonel Landa played by Christoph Waltz

Although Brad Pitt is the most famous movie star here, and people who watch the commercials will expect that this movie is based mostly on Pitt, they will find that Pitt’s character is over-shadowed by some of the Basterds, Hitler (a fantastic Hitler by the way), and mostly by Colonel Landa.  Christoph Waltz’s acting as Landa in his many scenes is so spectacular that he almost entirely stole the movie.  He makes me want to watch more movies with him in them.  Even the way he points his finger down at his knee in one scene is done so well it gets laughs.  I can’t say I liked all of the events that occurred in the movie, or the sometimes slow pace, but over all I really like the movie, and would gladly watch it again.  I recommend this movie to anyone who is okay with things not exploding every 20 minutes, to people who love great dialogue, and to people who like a story that wasn’t put together from separate parts taken from some Hollywood make-your-own-movie kit.  This is a movie that was actually written, and it’s certainly fresh.  I’m tired of the trash that’s been coming out of Hollywood lately, and I’m very glad I saw this movie.

Kichiguy’s Grade:  A-       (downgraded for the sometimes slow pace, and build-ups that don’t fully satisfy)

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