Inglourious Basterds (2009)

It was worth the wait.

Quentin Tarantino has been promising to unleash his World War II epic Inglourious Basterds upon us for over a decade. In the choppy wake of the critic-dividing Grindhouse experiment, Basterds is not only a return-to-form for the acclaimed director – it's perhaps his finest film yet.

Tarantino's love and appreciation of cinema is evident in virtually every frame of Inglourious Basterds; the film itself builds toward a finale set during the premiere of Joseph Goebbels' latest propaganda flick. Ostensibly a revenge tale, Basterds serves up an alternate history of World War II that is ultimately a propaganda movie of its own – and arguably a statement on violence in film.

Inglourious Basterds is perfectly paced, playing out like an on-screen novel; indeed, the film itself is split into five chapters during which Tarantino's knack for dialogue flourishes. Unlike those in most films, Inglourious Basterds' lush, natural conversations play out for longer than a mere couple of minutes – few directors could pull off an opening scene that is a fifteen minute conversation as well as Tarantino does here with an engaging sequence in which a Nazi interrogates a French farmer who may be harbouring Jews.

What follows is a sprawling tale as a vengeance-driven daughter of a slaughtered Jewish family, a defecting German actress, members of the British military, the Nazis and a group of OSS soldiers (the titular Basterds) converge, as characters do in Tarantino films, for a violent confrontation.

Although an ensemble picture, Inglourious Basterds benefits from just one megastar in its cast: Brad Pitt as beefcake Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who leads the Basterds on a mission to collect 100 Nazi scalps each. The rest of the cast (with the possible exception of Mike Myers, whose British general has overtones of Austin Powers) is mostly rounded out by a troupe of capable unknowns.

Two of the movie's stars shine particularly bright: Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfuss, a Jewish girl whose family was murdered by the Nazis, and Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa, the man who ordered the deaths. Laurent's moving performance grounds the film in some semblance of reality, while Waltz, quite simply, is phenomenal; his nuanced performance as Inglourious Basterds' main antagonist is indescribable – a dead certainty for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

There are a couple of jarring additions, including one of two sequences narrated by Samuel L. Jackson that overtly explains the explosive properties of nitrate film, but in the wake of some brain-crushingly moronic summer blockbusters, Inglourious Basterds is a gust of fresh air.

As expected for a Tarantino flick, violence abounds, and if you're likely to get squeamish at the sight of Raine and his cronies hacking the scalps off of evil Nazis, you have been warned. But when Tarantino (via Brad Pitt) professes during the film's final scene that Inglourious Basterds may just be his masterpiece, it's very difficult to disagree.