Inglorious Basterds: Great But...

Tarentino has done it again. Every scene in Inglorious slowly coils up like a snake about to strike. You wonder where it is going, but you know it is going somewhere that will leave a mark.

In true Tarentino style there are quirky and terrifying characters, but none more than Colonel Hans Landa (played by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz who stole the spotlight), the chillingly charming but guileful Nazi 'Jew finder', and nemesis of Brad Pitt's Lieutenant Aldo Raine.

One is treated to the clinical savagery of the Nazi  party as well as a slew of deliberately drawn stereotypes by way of characters and in the dialogue itself. The prejudice of the Nazi's, we are reminded, stretched beyond Jews and to blacks - or Negro's as well.

Tarentino's love for movies leads to a hint at the power film has to shape our perceptions - both his own film and films within his film. Even though he boldly criticizes the Nazi propaganda machine, he has a go at us as he churns out his own version of Nazi propaganda - only from a Jewish perspective. Inglorious may very well be what many a Jew would have liked to see happen in World War II. It definitely had an element of just desserts for what many regard as the wickedest movement in modern history.

But Tarentino might also be suggesting that brutality is brutal whomever delivers it - Jew, Nazi, Black or American.

The irony for me is Lt. Raine. He is a red neck caricature  who leads the 8 Nazi-killing Jews into occupied France. But one must remember if there's anyone who hates Jews and Blacks as much as a Nazi - it's the stereotypical American red neck.

A very well told story with a message we can't hear enough.