War films, there’s loads of them nowadays. What with various events in the middle-east, UK interests, US interests, Russian Interests, everyone’s getting involved. Oil, land, money, trade, religion, whatever, it’s all the same. The common uniform based, front-line, “Hoo-Ra!” screaming squaddies movie can be placed in a separate group depending on the time period of the war it’s depicting. World War I/II, Vietnam, Gulf/Iraq.

The ‘War Film’ has carved its own genre out of nothing more than some green uniforms, plastic weaponry, and emotional music. They’re all pretty much the same film, just occasionally a different time and setting. Always serious (it’s about people dying), always sad (again dead people), always with a ‘message’ – Hollywood just can’t keep its mouth shut.

Director Quentin Tarantino is a bit of a marmite figure among Blockbuster franchises. He’s a cult auteur, whom everyone’s heard of, both loved and hated by film buffs and movie fans at the same time. Quietly groundbreaking, I like to suggest. Pulp Fiction? Introduced choppy storytelling through cut+splice happy editing. Kill Bill? Two parts, one a sword, gore, manga, amphetamine concoction dream of a movie, upsetting and annoying as many as it did thrill. The other a slow, moving, iron-cast film as heavy as a Golden Island. Death Proof? He thought people would want to sit through two average films back to back! Of course he was wrong the idiot, but he gave it a go.

Inglourious Basterds then, although tipping the genre upside down somewhat, is pretty mild in the method, preferring to do it with a crash mat of fluffy pillows at the ready. In truth, Basterds isn’t a completely new idea. In terms of pitch, The action/comedy version of the WWII war film reminds me of Churchhill: The Hollywood Years in which Winston Churchill is remembered as a red work tie tied around his head, shirt with the sleeves ripped off wearing, rail gun in one hand holding, machismo American war hero. However whilst Basterds also takes the essential facts of there being a war on, and who it was with, it takes the creative differences across a new direction. Thankfully, unlike Chuchill, it’s one that isn’t shit.

Loads of proper historical figures appear in the film (actors playing them), and some of the places are where stuff actually happened (France), the rest is more or less fiction. A ‘What if the War had been like this?’ Movie. So whilst admittedly some of the characters have familiar names (Hitler, Goering), and they kind of look like the historical figures (they look German) at which they’re intended, this is where the history lesson ends as Bradley Pitt’s team of ruthless scalping killers take to the outback of mid 20th Century France to bag them some Nazi scum!

The plot, characters, mood, and acting will all test you. But I believe once you’re able to stop thinking about it as a war film, about what you think it should be, and start trying to enjoy it for what it is. You realise it’s quite enjoyable. Who doesn’t want to see Pitt prancing about slicing up Gestapo henchmen? Besides, as Charles Spencer Chaplin can I’m certain testify, there’s always room for a good old-fashioned angry, red, sweaty, hair parting flopping about the place Hitler to make an hilarious appearance.