No one plays a violent, sadistic bastard better than Brad Pitt. His portrayal of Jesse James was marvelous, and now he has reprised that role as Lt. Aldo Raine in Quentin Tarantino’s wonderful World War II flick turned-on-its-head, Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino shows us that torturers and murderers, no matter what their stripe, or their cause, are simply killers, ruthless men who learn to love their task all too well. It is a film that Lars von Trier, the badman of world cinema, could have made. The fact that we enjoy watching it should teach a lesson, though, I fear, few will learn it.

Except for the Fight Club, this is the only other time I haven’t hated Brad Pitt in a film. Benjamin Button is a perfect role for him, and his interpretation and acting skills are superb. The film itself is episodic, shot in murky tones, and more a fable than a story, so it takes a certain amount of determination to sit through it. At least, it did for me. Still, it’s fun to cheer on a hero who goes from infant old man to pre-teen with dementia, and falls in love a girl who ages in the normal fashion with all the weirdness that entails. I don’t know. It’s kind of like Titanic for 2009.

Is this Academy Award material? I don’t think so. Nevertheless, it garnered 13 nominations. Perhaps the thing that is likable about the film is that we don’t have to take it too seriously.

At filmcritic.com (who are sometimes as erratic as the Academy), they gave it five stars. I’d give it three.