9 Film Characters Who Randomly Disappear With No Explanation

3. PFC. Hirschberg (Among Other Basterds) - Inglourious Basterds

As The Dirty Dozen shows, the problem with ensemble films is trying to give every character adequate screen time and a satisfying narrative. When it comes to Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, then - a film that follows a group of ten mostly-Jewish soldiers whose sole mission is to kill Nazis in occupied France during World War II - the same difficulty seems to follow.

Unlike his other ensemble pieces - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, The Hateful Eight - which manage to satisfactorily balance a huge cast of main players, Inglourious Basterds introduces a bunch of people only to completely disregard them when they're no longer relevant. The likes of Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine and Eli Roth's Donny Donowitz stick around for the vast majority of the film, but characters like Samm Levine's Gerold Hirchberg disappear without any resolution or explanation, along with Paul Rust's Andy Kagan, Michael Bacall's Michael Zimmerman and Carlos Fidel's Simon Sakowitz.

What's the point of making a massive deal of The Basterds as a crew if most of them are narratively expendable? Well, because this is Tarantino, the whole gang was a reference to The Dirty Dozen anyway. So not actually a screenwriting slip-up.