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| “ | Every German we meet wearing a Nazi uniform... they're gonna die. | „ |
| ~ Aldo Raine. |
Lieutenant Aldo "The Apache" Raine is the anti-heroic main protagonist of the 2009 action-war film Inglorious Basterds.
He is an American soldier in World War II and the leader of "the Basterds", a group of soldiers dedicated to killing Nazis brutally and invoking fear in those who remain. He's obsessed with this and goes as far as to carve swastikas into the foreheads of Nazis so they cannot hide what they were.
He was portrayed by Brad Pitt, who also portrayed Benjamin Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Mills in Se7en, Don "Wardaddy" Collier in Fury, Frank Harris in Cool World, Jerry Welbach in The Mexican, Rusty Ryan in the Ocean's Eleven trilogy, Vanisher in Deadpool 2, Sinbad in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Ladybug in Bullet Train, and Metro Man in Megamind.
Biography[]
In the spring of 1944, 1st Special Service Force Lieutenant Aldo Raine recruits eight Jewish-American soldiers for a mission behind enemy lines, telling them they each owe him 100 Nazi scalps and will take no prisoners. Their number swells to nine when they learn of Staff Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz, a German soldier who was imprisoned awaiting transfer to Berlin for murdering thirteen Gestapo officers. The Basterds learn the location of the jail he's being held in, kill all the guards and invite Stiglitz to join the Basterds, which he accepts.
Adolf Hitler personally interviews a Nazi soldier, Private Butz, who relates how his squad was ambushed and his sergeant beaten to death with a baseball bat by Staff Sergeant Donny Donowitz, the "Bear Jew", when the sergeant refused to divulge information. Butz survived by providing the information (a fact which he hides from Hitler), but Raine carves a swastika into his forehead with a knife so he can never escape identity with the Nazis (both to shame him forever, but also protect him from execution from the Nazi high command, since his survival makes no sense otherwise). Hitler gives orders to stop the spreading of the Basterds' activity.
In June 1944, Shosanna Dreyfus, who has adopted the alias "Emmanuelle Mimieux", runs a cinema in Paris. She meets Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper whose heroism as a sole survivor who killed over 200 soldiers, is to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride), starring as himself. In love with Shosanna, Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels to hold the premiere at her cinema. Shosanna seizes the opportunity, secretly resolving with her black projectionist and lover, Marcel, to burn down her cinema and kill the top Nazi leaders at the premiere. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Archie Hicox, a British film critic specializing in German cinema, is recruited for "Operation Kino" by British General Ed Fenech and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Hicox will rendezvous with their double agent, German film star Bridget von Hammersmark, and the Basterds (Raine's squad), and infiltrate and plant explosives at the premiere.
Hicox goes with Hugo and Wicki, both German speakers, and they meet von Hammersmark at a tavern, where a German soldier, Wilhelm, is celebrating his son's birth with his friends and von Hammersmark, who also writes an autograph for his son as a gift. A Gestapo officer at the tavern notices Hicox's odd German accent and becomes suspicious. Hicox convinces the officer that he is from the German mountains and fabricates his appearance in a Nazi film to the officer, who is pleased. However, Hicox gives himself away by ordering glasses with the incorrect hand gesture, causing the officer to silently pull a gun to Hicox's crotch. However, Hicox reveals that he did the same thing and Hugo pulls his gun out, and they try to force the officer to leave the tavern with him. When the officer refuses, Hugo blows his testicles off and kills him but not before the officer kills Hicox.
Hugo's move alerts the other German soldiers, who open fire. Hugo and Wicki retaliate, killing all the soldiers and the barmen but Wilhelm opens fire with a machine-gun and murders the rest, except for Von Hammersmark. Wilhelm negotiates with Raine, who will let him go if he agrees to let her go. Wilhelm puts down his weapon, but Hammersmark immediately guns him down afterward. Later on, brutal SS colonel Hans Landa, nicknamed "The Jew Hunter", arrives at the site while investigating the tavern shooting, and recognizes Hugo and Hicox, becoming suspicious. He also finds Von Hammersmark's autograph and her missing shoe.
Although his German-speaking men are dead, Raine, upon learning from von Hammersmark that Adolf Hitler himself will be attending the premiere, decides to go ahead with the mission anyway. He, Donowitz, and Ulmer pose as von Hammersmark's Italian escort and cameramen, hoping their limited Italian will fool Germans unfamiliar with the language, while Von Hammersmark puts a cast on her injured leg and fabricates a story of injuring her leg while mountain climbing.
At the premiere, Landa, who speaks Italian fluently, is not fooled by von Hammersmark's companions nor her mountain story and sees her privately. He makes her put on the shoe, which fits perfectly, and suddenly strangles her to death, before ordering Raine's and Private Smithson Utivich's capture. Landa, using Hermann, his radio operator, orders Raine to contact his superior with the OSS and brokers a deal: in exchange for not hindering the explosives plan and thus ending the war, he receives immunity, U.S. citizenship, financial security, and the Medal of Honor for himself and the rest of the members of the operation. During the screening, Zoller slips away to the projection room to see Shosanna, who rejects him. He tries to force himself on her, but she relents and tells him to lock the door. With his back turned, she fatally shoots him, but he manages to turn and fatally shoot her as well. Meanwhile, Ulmer and Donowitz manage to dispatch the soldiers guarding Hitler.
As Zoller's film reaches the climax, a spliced-in clip of Shosanna in the cinema informs the audience that they are about to be killed by a Jew. Marcel, having locked the cinema, ignites a pile of flammable nitrate film behind the screen, as Shosanna laughs at their fates. Ulmer and Donowitz burst into the screening as it burns and riddle Hitler, Goebbels, and the trapped crowd with submachine gunfire, until the bombs go off and destroy the cinema, also killing Ulmer and Donowitz.
Landa and Hermann drive Raine and Utivich into Allied territory, where they surrender. To Landa's horror, Raine shoots Hermann and has Utivich collect his scalp, and for the first time, Landa shows no arrogance but fear. Raine is unable to accept the notion that Landa might go unpunished for his career as a Nazi officer, so he carves a swastika into his forehead - with his deepest cut yet, to the skull - as a permanent reminder of his crimes as Landa screams. Proudly inspecting his handiwork, he remarks to Utivich that "this just might be my masterpiece."
Quotes[]
| “ | My name is Lieutenant Aldo Raine. And I'm putting together a special team, and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y'all might've heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin' one thing and one thing only. Killin' Nazis. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a fuckin' airplane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be destroyed. That's why any and every son of a bitch we find wearin' a Nazi uniform, they're gonna die. Now, I'm the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That means I got a little Indian in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance. We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty, they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. And the German won't be able to help themselves but imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the German will be sickened by us. And the German will talk about us. And the German will fear us. And when the German closes their eyes at night and they're tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with. Sound good? (The Basterds: Yes, sir!) That's what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning for all you would-be warriors. When you join my command, you take on debit. A debit you owe me, personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y'all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis. Or you will die tryin'. | „ |
| ~ Lt. Raine's speech to his men. |
| “ | You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business; we in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin'. | „ |
| ~ Raine to Sergeant Rachtman. |
| “ | There's a word for that where I come from, and that word is: suspicious. | „ |
| ~ Raine being sceptical about von Hammersmark's claims of her meeting spot turning into a Nazi drinking house that led to a massacre that she alone survived |
| “ | Hans Landa: What's that expression about shoes and feet? Aldo Raine: "Looks like the shoe's on the other foot." Yeah, I was thinkin' that, too. |
„ |
| ~ Raine refusing to act defeated for sympathy due to rejecting the concept of Nazi "mercy." |
| “ | Hans Landa: That's a bingo! Is that how you say it? "That's a bingo"? Aldo Raine: You just say "bingo." |
„ |
| ~ Even when captured, Raine maintained a fearless controlled demeanour |
| “ | You know somethin', Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece. | „ |
| ~ Raine to Utivich after carving a swastika into Landa's forehead. |
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