I realize that many people will say that B. Pitt was supposed to act like a dumb-ass as part of his character's role. But, in my opinion, his acting is nearly always so bad that it spoils any movie he is in. A few of his middle career roles like "Snatch" were much better because he was not cast as a leading man type.
shareIt was a great performance.
shareI thought his acting was a little over the top. I could not get past his age for being a first lieutenant. He was at least 15 years too old for that part/rank. But I went with it...
shareJust like in The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen or you name it from the 50’s - 70’s WWII action film of low or high budget you would see many over aged actors for their parts. QT did not make this film to be taken seriously. So yep, I went with it too. :)
shareI didn't like Pitt much in movie, either. At times, it's felt to me as if he's been trying hard all his career to outdo Johnny Depp as "hot guy who does weird roles", and this film where he comes across as the most tryhard.
share6 years later and I completely agree. He was absolutely disgraceful in this role, childish, cartoonish and not an ounce of genuine acting ability.
To have him in a film with Christoph Waltz is an absolute insult and a hilarious contrast.
That disgusting accent he was doing was completely ridiculous and so obviously fake, it rivalled Nick Cage in con air.
Minority opinion: The movie was only truly entertaining when Pitt and his character was in a scene.
Which wasn't all that much. QT actually pulled a rather annoying "bait and switch" by selling Inglorious Basterds as a "Brad Pitt action movie." Granted, Pitt doesn't get killed off early or anything like that, but he disappears for long stretches while QT devotes entire scenes to his international cast of semi-unknowns in the US.
Lt. Aldo "The Apache" Raine (a twist on the name of 50's tough guy star Aldo Ray, whose haircut Bruce Willis was given in Pulp Fiction) is an interesting character. He has a rather dense squint going on, as if he's a bit slow and things are hard to understand for him at times -- but that's a ruse. He's actually VERY smart, very quick on the mental draw, which is demonstrated in his opening speech to his men about the mercilesslessness his squad(mainly of Jews, save himself) is going to impose on the Nazis.
You could say that Aldo the Apache is a psychopath. Using that great Kentucky accent(which makes all of Pitt's scenes as funny to listen to as Christoph Waltz with his German-accented trill), Aldo recruits German serial killer of Nazis Hugo Stiglitz with the line "We admire your work. We're here to see if you'd like to turn pro." One psychopath saluting another psychopath, and recruiting him for TEAM of psychopaths ("The Bear Jew" included) who out to torture, kill, and SCALP Nazis in the guise of war. Or as Aldo tells a captured Nazi prisoner: "We're not in the takin' prisoners bidness. We're in the killin' Nazis bidness and I tell you cousin, bidness is a boomin!" Hilarious. Gruesome. But psychpaths are the "right side" are absolutely necessary in war.
CONT
Aldo also has no compunction about sticking his finger into the bloody bullet wound of a pro-American German spy (Diane Kruger) when he thinks she's double crossing HIM. WE know she isn't and its tough to watch Aldo wrongly torture her. But he's a psychopath and one "on the side of right" (saving America and killing Hitler) and so even his MISTAKEN sadism is oddly justified here. (And so sadly for the Kruger character -- who is a "good guy" in our eyes -- she ends up strangled by Waltz in the name of HIS psychopathy and patriotism. Such brutal treatment, by both sides, of a beautiful woman.)
Pitt gets more funny lines than Waltz, like "Nobody told me we'd be fightin' in a basement. There's a lot of problems fightin' in a basement, mainly you're fightin in a fuckin' BASEMENT!"
And he's hilarious trying to impersonate an Italian under Waltz's questioning -- the dumb guy squint again, but at least he knows SOME Italian.
Waltz made a big splash with Inglorious Basterds and emerged a star of sorts but - as with Joe Pesci before him, also Oscar'ed --- soon the critics went from saying "this Christoph Waltz is a real find, a great new actor!" to "Christoph Waltz does his usual Christoph Waltz schtick."
Meanwhile, Brad Pitt just continued on being a big star -- though one as accustomed to flops(Babylon) as hits(QT's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with its Oscar for Pitt.)
I thought that Waltz was great in "Basterds," but his famous opening interrogation of the farmer went on far too long and in later scenes, he rather hammed it up a bit. Not to mention the personality he presented us -- his rather giddy, child-like goofball of an adult man(borderline gay in his effeminate manner, but again, more like a Big Child) -- wasn't as entertaining as Pitt's squinting military tough guy with HIS funny accent.
CONT
It all comes together when Waltz has Pitt taken prisoner and the two men exchange friendly dialogue in a life or death setting, with this famous exchange:
Waltz: (Again, like an overexcited child) Dat's a BINGO! Dat's how you say it, right?
Pitt: (In his dumbish, squinting drawl) No. You just say bingo.
I'd say that after his opening interrogation scene, Waltz's NEXT best scene is this one with Pitt because here the two main adversaries of the story finally meet, and the two most compelling actors in the scene meet.
And I like Aldos pragmatism here. We've seen him capture interrogate, torture and kill Nazis. When Waltz says "would not you do what I am doing if the shoe were on the other foot?" Aldo has to agree: "Yep." HE's the prisoner now, he will have to take the consequences he doled out to so many others.
But this scene(Aldo vs Hans Landa; two men out to make a surprising deal) is really about two charismatic actors getting to share a scene and toss lines at each other(with the humorous presence of one OTHER American prisoner, saying nothing except taking umbrage at being called "The Little Man" to which Waltz replies: "Actually I'm surprised. You're short, but not circus midget short.")
Anyway, since I think the Brad Pitt scenes are the best scenes in Inglorious Basterds, for the most part Christoph Waltz's best scenes are the scenes where HE is WITH Pitt. Right up to their final scene.
Pitt is the entertainment engine that drives Inglorious Basterds. QT hired his name American star well.
That accent was perfect for that kind of American in that day and time. I don't know why you call Aldo Raines dumb, his voice was a tell that he did not care about superficial things - he was focused on the business of killin' natzis, and business is booming. I loved his downhome phrases.
In a way it was a paean to the American men of that period, the greatest generation, who came from all over the country to join together to sail across the oceans and kill fascist soldiers to defend democracy, or so they thought anyway.
The absuridity of his voice is a counterbalance to the effectiveness of his mission. Aldo was pragmatic as hell.
He was Cringworthy in this one, iv'e noticed he adds little quirks to most of his roles in an attempt to distract the fact he never comes off as a real natural person.
I don't know him personally but the vibe i've always got from him in interviews and from his films is that he's just really handsome with not a lot going on upstairs, however rather than play on that and be a super cool Steve Mcqueen type in every film ala Rick Boothe, he is ashamed of the fact he's only cast for his looks and so try's to prove to everyone that he's a real Actor
He's really distracting in this film in particular