A $70 million war epic that decides to play fast and loose with some of the most important events in human history is always going to come under at least some form of criticism, but it’s not as if Inglourious Basterds leaving historians and scholars clutching their pearls bothered Quentin Tarantino.
After all, the filmmaker has been known to play hard, fast, and loose with the facts in order to suit whichever story he’s telling at the time, so the only shocking thing about the third act of the gung-ho World War II adventure was just how brutally Adolf Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy ended up being pulverized into a fine paste by the ragtag group of titular soldiers.
Critics and crowds certainly didn’t mind anyway, seeing as the rollicking flight of fancy hauled in well over $300 million at the box office, scooped eight Academy Award nominations, and saw Christoph Waltz walk away from the ceremony with his star well and truly made, even if he has tended to be typecast as the charismatic psychopath in his major Hollywood ventures ever since.
Switch off your brain, imagine it takes place in an entirely different reality to our own, and there’s limitless buckets of fun to be had with a bloody, bullet-riddled, and impeccably-crafted period piece that pays attention to some of the finer details while displaying a complete lack of interest in others, something that arguably defines Tarantino’s entire filmography up to this point.
More than a decade on from its release, and Inglourious Basterds flying high as one of the top-viewed titles on Max (per FlixPatrol) only serves to underline its enduring popularity as top-tier escapism.