Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Box Office: 321.5 million USD

My Rating: 9/10

Description: In 1941 Nazi-occupied France, a Jewish teenage girl named Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) narrowly escapes death as her family is massacred by Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Four years later, she owns a cinema and is living under the name Emmanuelle Mimieux, keeping a low profile. This all goes downhill when a young SS soldier named Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) develops a crush on her and convinces Goebbels to hold the premiere of their exploitation film at her cinema. Meanwhile, the American Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) has developed a group of eight Jewish American soldiers called the Bastards, who not only kill Nazis, but completely terrorize them as well. Neither knowing about the other, both Shosanna and the Bastards develop their own plans to end the war on the night of the premiere.

My Thoughts: While this isn't a perfect movie, it's pretty damn close. There's a kind of grim satisfaction that you never get to experience before you watch a group of Jewish men terrorize Nazis, especially when Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz (Eli Roth) beats one to death with a baseball bat. Shosanna's last words in the movie are simply exhilarating to listen to and give her so much power. Not only that, but I feel that villains don't usually get very much credit for being evil. In this case, Hans Landa is by far the best fictional villain I've ever seen in my life, and Christoph Waltz's Oscar for Best Supporting Actor was more than well-deserved. Landa is completely amoral in the sense that most of the things he does are for the purpose of proving that he's the smartest person in the room. The very end is the only time in the movie when he doesn't get the last word in because he knows Lt. Raine has outsmarted him. Speaking of the history-altering ending, it's both satisfying and incredibly sad. Every single actor in this film did a fantastic job, and there are some camera shots that are so beautiful they're simply breathtaking. However, if you can't stomach gory visuals, I would highly recommend being cautious (it's a Tarantino movie, for goodness' sake). This is all-around one of my favourite movies of all time, and I don't say this lightly.

Best Line: "Donny! We've got a German here who wants to die for his country. Oblige him."