INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
LOOSELY BASED on Enzo Castellari’s 1978 grindhouse gem The Inglorious Bastards, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds endures as one of the auteur’s most innovative works. Its twin stories follow a special team of Jewish-american soldiers on a Nazi-killing spree behind enemy lines and a young Jewish theater owner out for revenge in occupied France, all of whom intersect on one fateful night that leads to a gasp-inducing climax.
This first-ever Ultra HD disc release of a Tarantino catalog title is a disappointment, offering minimal if any improvements over the 2009 regular HD Blu-ray, which is included in the package for easy comparison. Both appear sourced from the same 2K digital intermediate rather than a modern 4K remaster. Bright areas of the 2.39:1 image often look harsh and blown-out rather than showcasing the natural-looking highlights achievable with high dynamic range (HDR10+, in this case). Faces frequently lack the sort of detail we should expect. Most of the movie is set indoors, but grass and trees in the early outdoors scenes are well-delineated, and the slight distortions inherent to Panavision lenses are preserved.
The soundtrack is identical to the 2009 Blu-ray version to my ear. I forgot how loud the music is within the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, even stepping on the dialogue at times. That’s perhaps due to the filmmaker’s respect for these tunes, which are reproduced with exquisite fidelity. His trademark needle drops— borrowing pre-existing music for use in the soundtrack—are conspicuous here, despite this being a period film, perhaps most famously repurposing Ennio Morricone’s “Rabbia e tarantella” from the 1974 movie Allonsanfàn for the end credits. The basement bar shootout remains as intense as ever, with gunfire sounding sharp throughout, while Adolf Hitler’s voice echoes credibly during his rant.
No new extras are served up on both platters, but there are certainly some goodies here, including two in-depth interviews plus short featurettes that offer a glimpse of how awesome it must be to work on a Tarantino set. The deleted/extended/ alternate scenes are worth a watch, even though a quick look at the trailers proves that there were even more trims left on the cutting room floor.