Inglourious Basterds (4k UHD + Blu-Ray + Digital HD)
Blu-Ray Reviews | Oct 21st, 2021
Starring: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Mélanie Laurent, Daniel Brühl, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Til Schweiger
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Studio: Universal
Buy On Amazon.com
One of Quentin Tarantino’s best films is available on 4k UHD for the first time and if you haven’t seen the movie yet, now is a good time to check it out!
For those that don’t know much about the movie. It takes place in WWII and focuses on a group of all Jewish-American soldiers who take on the “Naaaaazis.” The team is led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Hot on their trail is SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), who is an excellent detective and can speak multiple languages. Another part of the story is about Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), who operates a Paris cinema and is courted by a German war hero, Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). Zoller is smitten with her, despite not knowing she is Jewish. He wants her to host a German film festival that Joseph Goebbels and Hitler will attend. That’s where everything comes to fruition at the end of the movie.
I’ve only seen this movie once but felt like now was a good time to revisit it. After watching it again, I actually liked it better the second time. I’m still not a fan of the alternate history aspect that QT tends to do with some of his movies. Doesn’t mean I still didn’t enjoy seeing Hitler getting blasted in the face repeatedly. I feel like the movie would have worked fine even if the ending had a different outcome. Switch out Adolf with Landa and I’d be happy with that. It’s kind of amusing the role reversal he gives towards the end though, even though he’s a piece of shit. I forgot how violent, tense and dark the movie can be. Should have called this Suicide Squad WWII.
The acting in this movie is tremendous. Christoph Waltz speaking several languages was obviously noticeable from even the first time I saw this. He became a more well-known star after this, same goes with Daniel Brühl. He, of course, went on to play Zemo in the MCU. Even Michael Fassbender speaks English, German and other languages. Damn these European actors with their many languages haha. I haven’t seen Mélanie Laurent in anything else besides this but her performance really stood out to me in this movie as well. Can’t forget Brad Pitt, who along with his Basterds brings out the comical aspects to the movie. There’s very subtle comical stuff in the movie, especially at the end in the movie theater with Landa. Lieutenant Aldo Raine and him speaking I-talian (“BORN JORNO”) and Eli Roth and Omar Doom just using hand gestures to pass off being I-talian.
I also forgot how tense some of these scenes were. If I saw this in a theater, I’d be at the edge of my seat for the opening scene as well as the scene down in the tavern with all the German soldiers. I don’t know which one had more tension. Quentin is a master at building tension between characters and just gives me anxiety thinking of those scenes again. Quentin is also a master at picking the right music for his movies, even though most of these tracks were done for other movies. It just always seems to work within his movies. I would say this soundtrack is my favorite out of the Tarantino movies besides Pulp Fiction.
I tried to watch the movie streaming to see the difference between the different platforms. Vudu was streaming it only in SD for some odd reason even though I have UHD, and Movies Anywhere was pixelated a lot. I’m sure it’s shitty Optimum’s service that has something to do with it. I ended up watching most of the movie on discs themselves and you just can’t beat that quality. The featurettes included on the 4k UHD discs are the same from the Blu-Ray BUT there is a brand new New York Times Talks with an interview discussion with Quentin.
Inglourious Basterds is an interesting movie with such strong acting performances, with Quentin’s usual nods to all the films he grew up on. The soundtrack is excellent, it’s Oscar nominated and rightly so. I don’t tend to like movies with alternate histories and I originally didn’t like the ending of this movie but I get why Tarantino went that route. I still think it would have been fine if the ending was different and other cast members died instead of the ones that had different fates in real life. Either way, this is one of Quentin’s best films.
Features:
Extended & Alternate Scenes
Roundtable Discussion with Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt and Elvis Mitchell
The New York Times Talks
Nation’s Pride – Full Feature
The Making of Nation’s Pride
The Original Inglorious Bastards
A Conversation with Rod Taylor
Rod Taylor on Victoria Bitter
Quentin Tarantino’s Camera Angel
Hi Sallys
Film Poster Gallery Tour with Elvis Mitchell
Inglourious Basterds Poster Gallery
Trailers
Video:
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (49.41 Mbps)
Resolution: Upscaled 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10+
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1
Subtitles:
English SDH, French, Spanish
Bottom Line: One of Quentin Tarantino’s best films
Running Time: 153 mins
Rating: R
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
