Inglourious Basterds
Chapter One: "Once Upon a Time..... in Nazi-Occupied France"
The film opens in 1941 with Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a detective of the Waffen-SS, proudly known as the "Jew Hunter", visiting French dairy farmer Perrier LaPadite (Denis Ménochet). After making casual conversation in French and taking a saucer of LaPadite's delicious milk, Landa claims to have exhausted his French and asks to switch to English.
In English, Landa then notes that his papers state that all of the Jewish families around LaPadite's region have been accounted for, except the Dreyfuses, who have vanished completely in the past year. Landa believes that someone is hiding them very well. After rambling on a bit about the logic he uses to hunt Jews, he admits that he is required to conduct a thorough search of LaPadite's house.
By dropping a subtle hint about whether or not to leave LaPadite's family alone in the future, Landa manages to break down LaPadite and get him to confess that he is hiding the Dreyfuses under the floorboards. LaPadite points out the approximate location of the hidden Dreyfuses. Landa immediately decides that he will be switching to French. In French, he thanks LaPadite for the milk and hospitality, then opens the door, seemingly calling out to LaPadite's family, but in actuality to booted Wehrmacht soldiers, who come inside and take up positions. On Landa's orders, the soldiers fire their guns into the floorboards, killing the Dreyfuses. However, Landa hears a noise, and sees the teenage Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent) running away into the hills. Landa considers shooting her with his pistol but decides against it, yelling after her, "Au revoir, Shosanna!"
Chapter Two: "Inglourious Basterds"
The second chapter takes place three years later in 1944, just prior to the Allied invasion of France. We see redneck Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) addressing in formation his newly formed eight-man Jewish-American commando unit. He proceeds to explain to them, in drill sergeant style, that they will be dropped behind enemy lines to cause havoc to all Nazi soldiers they come across with the goal of bringing fear into the heart of the enemy. He further explains to them that the normal standards of military conduct will not apply because the Nazis themselves have no humanity and are not deserving of any humanity in return. He mentions that he has Apache blood running through his veins and that each and every one of the men in his command owes him a debt of 100 Nazi scalps.
We next cut to a scene showing us the terrible-tempered Adolf Hitler (Martin Wuttke), angrily ridiculing two of his military command for not being able to deal with the Basterds, as their activities are demoralizing to his fighting men. Hitler then interviews Private Butz (Sönke Möhring), whose entire patrol was recently ambushed and killed by the Basterds, and he was the only survivor. When Hitler asks Butz if they marked him like they did the other survivors, Butz shows him the swastika carved into his forehead.
Butz's story is told in flashback: all of the soldiers have already been killed except for three: Butz, Sgt. Werner Rachtman (Richard Sammel), and a third soldier. Raine has Rachtman come forward, and threatens to have him killed if he does not disclose the whereabouts and information on a nearby Nazi patrol. Rachtman is adamant that he will not provide information that could possibly harm other German soldiers and Raine calls for Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), known to German soldiers as the "Bear Jew" to beat Rachtman to death with a baseball bat, which he proceeds to do, which very much delights all of the Basterds. The second survivor is also shot dead in a moment of excitement.
Raine then interrogates the non-English speaking Private Butz. Cpl. Willem Wicki (Gedeon Burkhard) acts as their interpreter. Private Butz quickly provides the Basterds with all they need to know after which Lt. Raine lets Private Butz go - but not before carving a swastika into Butz's forehead with his own customized Bowie knife - as a branding (swastika carving is Lt. Raine's trademark). The scene ends with Donowitz commenting to Raine that he is becoming quite good at carving swastikas. Lt. Raine responds: "You know how you get to Carnegie Hall don't ya? Practice."
Chapter Three: "German Night in Paris"
June 1, 1944: Shosanna has assumed the identity of "Emmanuelle Mimieux". How she manages to do so is not revealed. She has also become the proprietress of a cinema in downtown Paris, which is chosen by Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a spotlight-hungry sniper-turned-actor whose exploits are being celebrated in the Nazi propaganda film Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride), as the setting for the film premiere. He is infatuated with Shosanna and convinces Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to hold the premiere in her cinema. Shosanna, however, does not reciprocate Zoller's feelings.
Shosanna realizes that the presence of so many high ranking Nazi officials and officers provides an excellent opportunity for revenge. She resolves to burn down the cinema using the massive quantities of flammable nitrate film she holds in storage during the premiere (because nitrate film burns three times faster than paper, and is cheaper than buying lots of explosives; the English narrator (Samuel L. Jackson) tells us that the flammability of nitrate film was such so that you couldn't even take a reel on a streetcar), and she and her lover/assistant Marcel re-edit the fourth reel of "Stolz der Nation".
Chapter Four: "Operation Kino"
In the meantime, the British have also learned of the Nazi leadership's plan to attend the premiere and dispatch a British officer, Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), to Paris to lead Operation Kino, an attack on the cinema with the aid of the Basterds and a German double agent, an actress by the name of Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). Hicox meets with General Ed Fenech (Mike Myers) and Winston Churchill (Rod Taylor) and is chosen for the mission based on his expertise of German filmmakers.
Bridget Von Hammersmark arranges to meet Hicox and two of the Basterds, Wicki and the psychotic Hugo Stigliz (Til Schweiger) (who defected from the Germans after killing thirteen Gestapo in violent ways {some of which can be viewed in Chapter 2}) in the basement of a French tavern to arrange their plans. The only problem is that the night of the rendezvous is also the occasion of a German staff sergeant named Wilhelm (Alexander Fehling) celebrating the birth of his son with his soldier comrades. One of the German soldiers present strikes up a conversation with Hicox and notices that his accent is "odd". An SS Major, Dieter Hellstrom (August Diehl) (whom we met earlier during Chapter 3), who is in the tavern as well also notices the odd accent (although Hicox is fluent in German, he is using his British accent). Hellstrom joins Hicox and von Hammersmark and plays one round of a guessing game with them (with Hellstrom's card, King Kong). He offers to buy the table a round of drinks. Unfortunately, Hicox betrays himself when he gives the wrong three-fingered order for whiskey (holding up his ring, middle, and pointer fingers instead of his thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger), and the SS officer recognizes their deception.
Hicox, Wicki, Stiglitz, and all of the Germans, as well as the French tavern owner, subsequently kill each other in the resulting 15 second shootout: Stiglitz starts things off by telling Hellstrom to say "auf Wiedersehen" to his Nazi balls, then shoots him in his groin. Hellstrom then shoots Hicox in turn and hits Bridget in her right leg, who falls backward in her chair, while Hicox falls backward and returns fire at Hellstrom. Stiglitz then stands up and repeatedly stabs Hellstrom in the back of the head, pinning his head to the table. Wicki stands up and shoots Winnetou in the back at least twice. Beethoven shoots Stiglitz in the back. Mata Hari shoots Wicki in the stomach. Stiglitz turns and shoots Beethoven four times in the torso and then also shoots Edgar Wallace in the heart, killing them both. Wicki shoots Mata Hari in the heart. Then, Eric shoots Stiglitz with a double-barreled shotgun, killing him. Wicki shoots Eric in the head. Wilhelm blindly guns down Wicki and Mathilda with his MP40 submachine gun. Just then, Raine and several of the Basterds arrive (having waited outside the tavern and now alerted by the shooting), and a standoff ensures between them and Wilhelm. After Wilhelm agrees to surrender to the Basterds, Bridget retrieves Hicox's pistol and fires four shots at Wilhelm, hitting him at least twice in the chest, killing him. The wounded Bridget allows herself to be captured by Raine and the Basterds.
A little later, Raine angrily interrogates Bridget at a local animal clinic where he takes her for medical treatment for her bullet wound where she tells him about Operation Kino. Raine decides to continue the operation against the cinema. Raine picks two of his best men, Donowitz and Omar Ulmer (Omar Doom), to make use of suicide bombs and the three of them will pose as Italian filmmakers escorting Bridget to the event. To explain the cast on her leg, Bridget will claim to have broken it in a mountain-climbing accident.
Colonel Landa, who is now an SD officer, investigates the carnage at the French pub and finds one of Bridget von Hammersmark's shoes left behind and also an autographed napkin which Bridget had signed for the staff sergeant's son, realizing that she was there and may have been wounded. He also identifies the bodies of the two German-born Basterds, noting their reputation to disguise themselves as German soldiers to ambush squads.
Chapter Five: "Revenge of the Giant Face"
The following evening, Landa approaches Bridget and Raine in the cinema lobby and is able to easily see through their disguises, as Raine, Donowitz, and Ulmer cannot speak fluent Italian or German (Raine is most obvious since he is speaking it with a thick Southern accent). He questions Bridget alone and makes her try on the shoe he had retrieved from the tavern. It is a perfect fit. He strangles and kills her as a traitor, and orders the arrest of Raine. As Raine is driven off in a truck, he discovers one of his men, Private Utivich (B.J. Novak), has also been captured and is in the truck with him.
Landa reveals himself to be a turncoat. While speaking with Raine and Utivich in the privacy of a closed restaurant, he tells them that four major Nazi leaders must all be killed to end the terrible war immediately. They are all attending Nation's Pride, and he is prepared to let the assassination continue... for a price. He has no intention of helping end the war only to be tried by a Jewish tribunal for war crimes and end up facing execution. In order to help end the war, he wants to make a deal, one Raine cannot authorize, but his commanding officer (voice of Harvey Keitel) can. Landa has his radio operator help Raine reach his general, where Landa states the terms of his deal: he wants full military pension and benefits under his current rank, the Congressional Medal of Honor for everyone involved in the operation, American citizenship and a home on Nantucket Island. He also reveals that he had planted Raine's explosives in Hitler's box at the cinema (which is shown in flashback), indicating that there are now three attempts against Hitler's life (Donowitz and Omar in the main theater, the explosives in Hitler's box, and Shoshanna's plot). Raine is placed on the radio and his general tells him that Landa and his radio operator will drive him and Utivich in a truck to American lines, then surrender to them, whereupon Raine will drive the truck the rest of the way to base and bring Landa and the operator to him for debriefing.
Meanwhile, during the showing of Nation's Pride, Shosanna and her assistant (and lover) Marcel (Jacky Ido) are manning the projection booth when he tells her it is time. It is revealed in a flashback to a few days ago which shows Marcel filming a close-up of Shosanna's face making a speech in English. They then force a local camera shop owner to develop the film by threatening to kill him and his family if he doesn't, and Shosanna edits the complete film on the fourth and final film reel of the movie and leaves them in the projection booth for them to run when the time is right.
Flashing back to the present, Marcel tells Shosanna that he needs to lock the auditorium and go behind the screen. As Marcel makes his way toward the auditorium, the two Basterds that have been left behind, Donowitz and Omar Ulmer, leave their seats and exit the auditorium heading upstairs to the balcony level... determined to kill Hitler by themselves (neither of them are aware of Raine's capture or of Shosanna's plan to burn down the cinema with all of them inside). Donowitz carefully spies on the two guards watching the entrance to Hitler's opera box from the nearest restroom.
Shosanna loads the doctored fourth reel of Nation's Pride onto the projector camera as Marcel locks the auditorium doors, sliding the safety locks at the tops and bottoms of the doors into place, and then slides a heavy iron crowbar through the door handles, further barring them. He steps behind the screen where Shosanna had placed her entire stack of flammable nitrate film. Shosanna pulls a lever to switch the projector to the doctored reel on a cue symbol in the film. Watching from behind the screen, Marcel lights up a cigarette and waits.
Meanwhile, Zoller, who is uncomfortable with the way he is portrayed killing Americans in the film, leaves the cinema auditorium and makes his way to the projectionist's room to flirt with Shosanna. She is deeply concerned at his intrusion and tells him to leave. However, the spurned Zoller pushes his way into the room and angrily confronts Shosanna about her treatment of him, warning her that she's no longer in a position to disrespect him. Needing to get Zoller out of the way, she asks him to lock the door, dropping a subtle hint: "we don't have much time." Soon as Zoller's back is turned to her, she pulls out a small gun from her purse and shoots him in the back, mortally wounding him. Quickly she glances into the auditorium to make sure she wasn't heard. Suddenly, she hears Zoller groan and realizes he's still alive. In an apparent moment of pity, she turns him over, and he manages to shoot her dead before he succumbs to his wounds.
At the same time, Donowitz and Ulmer are preparing their ambush to take out the opera box guards. Donowitz disguises himself as a waiter delivering a glass of champagne. The ambush goes off without a hitch and they kill both guards and then steal their machine guns.
Meanwhile, we see Hitler greatly enjoying the battle scene in the movie, where Zoller is taking out numerous American soldiers by himself. But his joy comes to a quick end when Zoller's challenge in the movie ("Who wants to send a message to Germany?") is answered with the changes Shosanna made to the fourth reel. The large image of Shosanna's face appears on the screen and she tells the audience (speaking in heavily accented English for the first and only time in the movie) that they're all going to die, and she is a Jew ready to take revenge. On her cue, Marcel flicks his cigarette into the pile of nitrate film behind the screen, igniting it. The fire bursts through the screen, causing pandemonium in the auditorium. Just then, Donowitz and Ulmer burst into Hitler's box and gun down Hitler, Goebbels, Goebbels secretary and French translator Francesca Mondino (Julie Dreyfus) and the other Nazi leaders. As the cinema is engulfed in flames, Donowitz and Ulmer fire randomly into the crowd below them, who are attempting to flee, but escape is impossible, as the auditorium doors are now locked and barred. Finally, the dynamite that Landa had planted in Hitler's box, as well as the dynamite strapped to the Basterds' legs, now goes off. The cinema is destroyed in the subsequent inferno, killing everybody inside.
The next day, Landa and his radio operator set off with Raine and Utivich towards the American lines in Normandy, as part of the deal he had made with Raine's commanding officer. At the American lines, he surrenders to Raine and hands over his gun and sword. Raine orders Utivich to handcuff Landa, and suddenly shoots the driver dead, ordering Utivich to scalp him over Landa's outraged protest. Raine reveals that while he appreciates Landa's underhanded deal and all the perks he's secured for himself, he is incensed that on arriving in America, Landa intended to take off his SS uniform and blend in to the American populace, with nobody remembering all the heinous deeds he committed as a Nazi officer. Raine plans to remedy that. The film ends with Raine carving a swastika into Landa's forehead and declaring to Utivich that it may just be his "masterpiece."
