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By Samantha Leigh Kelley

Quentin Tarantino’s latest film starts off in Nazi occupied France in 1941. He takes us to a modest dairy farm, the home of a family suspected of hiding Jews. Here we meet two of the leading characters; Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (played by actor Christoph Waltz) and Shoshanna Dreyfus (actress Melanie Laurent). The pace of the movie seems to start off slow for a Tarantino film. But, as the suspense builds we start recognizing all of the things Quentin is known and loved for. Witty dialog, western scores, beautiful cinematography, and of course gore that could only be fashioned by the man himself.

As I always seem to do, I fell in love with his leading lady Shoshanna Dreyfus. She bares a striking resemblance to Uma Thurmon’s character Beatrix in Kill Bill volume one and two. Shoshanna is a “hard as nails” character, who possesses a beautiful vulnerability and a motive for revenge. After witnessing the slaughter of her family by the hand of Nazi Hans Landa “the Jew Hunter”, Shoshanna escapes and reappears, fours years later. She now resides in Paris assuming a new identity of “Emmanuelle Mimieux”, and is a proprietress of a cinema. Through a series of suspenseful events Shoshanna devises a plan to become “The Face of Jewish Vengeance”.

In chapter two Tarantino introduces us to “The Basterds”. Brad Pitt plays American 1st Lieutenant Aldo Raine, a hillbilly-moonshiner from Maynardville, Tennessee. Right from the get-go Aldo claims to be a direct descendant of mountain man Jim Bridger and their battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance. Their mission is to savagely kill as many Nazis as possible. After all, they are in “The Nazi Killin’ Business”. They operate with a “Take No Prisoners” attitude and scalp their victims following each ambush. Raine tells his men that each person chosen to join the Basterds personally owes him 100 Nazi scalps. And, with their track record 100 scalps per solider seems completely plausible.

Actor Christoph Waltz plays Nazi Colonel Hans Landa. Being that of a Nazi Colonel he is one of the most ruthless villains I’ve ever been witness to on the silver screen. He teases those he hunts down with seemingly sincere chatter, entices them with a chance of freedom then blindsides his victims as a snake would strike or strangle its prey. Christoph Waltz does such a good job in this role that he has already won the best-actor prize at Cannes. Rodger Ebert even stated that “Christoph Waltz deserves an Oscar nomination to go with his best actor award”. And, I feel that any film buff would agree.

Overall this is a movie worth investing the 2 hours and 32 minutes it takes to tell the story. At the end of the film I was literally sitting on my couch at home cheering. Quentin Tarantino continues to produce action packed classics, in only a way he could. Tarantino has also written 40 pages thus far to an Inglourious Basterds prequel, and I can not wait to see what he comes up with next!