Inglourious Basterds

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In most films about the Second World War, the Jews are relegated to the role of the hopelessly pathetic victim, mere plot devices to establish the merciless cruelty of the evil Nazis and provide justification for the violent justice that will be exacted by the (typically Gentile) lantern-jawed men of action. With Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino hands the guns (and bombs, and knives...) over to a group of ass-kicking Chosen, allowing them, for once, to take revenge for themselves. Though the empowerment of the Jews is the first and most obvious innovation that Basterds makes as a war film, it's by no means the last.

Like every Tarantino film, Basterds is densely packed with homage, though unlike his last two projects (counting Kill Bill as one film), it never collapses into wearisome tribute. The spaghetti western comes out prominently as the Brad Pitt-led posse of ferocious Hebrews roams the French countryside scalping Nazis, and Sergio Leone is probably owed a writing credit for the film's structure, which consists mostly of long, sustained scenes of escalating tension, punctuated by brief moments of extreme violence. Less explicitly (but by no means subtly), Tarantino borrows a lot from war-era propaganda films — especially German ones — tying their imagery and techniques into a plot line that climaxes by making a surprisingly subversive, intelligent comment on the role media plays in structuring reality. Basterds is a Tarantino movie down to its bones, driven by his irresistible dialogue, playful asides and impossibly intricate camera work, but it's this newfound thoughtfulness that elevates it above the rest of his catalogue. Like all of his best work, the homage works for the ideas contained within the story and this is the most skillful implementation of that he's ever done—if Basterds isn't his best, it is at the very least his cleverest.

Weirdly enough, despite its gruesome subject matter, it's also his funniest. Though much of this is due to an unusually high number of openly self-parodying Tarantinoisms, a lot of credit goes to Austrian vet Christopher Waltz, who plays Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa, the closest thing the Basterds have to an antagonist (besides Hitler himself, natch). Waltz plays his character as an icy, calculating psychopath hiding beneath the veneer of a clownish, ingratiating buffoon. He oscillates from second to second between goofiness (forcing a suspected traitor to go through an absurd, Cinderella-like game) and terrifying brutality (choking her to death with his bare hands seconds later). Like the film around him, Waltz’s light delivery belies something razor sharp and deathly serious at his core.