Black comedy is the film's genre and it is in every aspect of the film, although some parts are more black and some parts more comic. Brad Pitt is the funniest one of the film, playing Aldo Raine with his band of bloodthirsty soldiers, known as The Bastards, eager to pay the debt of "100 Nazi scalps" that they each owe him. Another character, Colonel Hans Landa, is more black. Played by Christoph Waltz, the character is wonderfully acted, and we get to see everything we hate about the Nazis and the SS death legions manifest in this character. Hans Landa however does tie with Aldo Raine for my favorite character in this film, simply because he is the most interesting to pick apart. He is featured in all the best scenes, the beginning, in which the mood is set with the rest of the movie. The film is constantly making you wonder how the explosive situations throughout it will end.
Explosive situations, may not be the right word to describe many of the scenes in this film. The scenes are more like giant barrels of gunpowder, sitting right next to a sparking fire. The scenes are mostly talking, with the swastika armbands and lies that are obvious to us, but the characters are oblivious to serving to keep us on the edge of our seats.
The trademark gore of Quentin Tarantino films is here in copious amounts. There are horribly gruesome scenes of men being shot about a thousand times, burning buildings and terrifying laughing faces projected in the smoke, and men being scalped while punchlines are delivered with impunity. At one point, after the bastards kill one of their enemies by beating him to death with a baseball bat, I actually yelled at the screen, "You people are insane!"
Inglorious Bastards is a film to be watched only when children are far from the room. Tarantino will traumatize and ruin them. For all the parents out there, I say You have been warned.
