DJANGO UNCHAINED--a movie review

 

Django Unchained

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

Starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, Don Johnson

A Columbia Pictures/Weinstein Company Release

165 minutes

Rated 'R' for graphic violence, profanity, and nudity

The latest work by Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained, is loosely an homage to perhaps his greatest film making influence, Sam Peckinpah, but it also owes much to 60s spaghetti westerns and 70s blaxploitation flicks.  As with Inglorious Basterds, it is Tarantino's cultural reference blender running this film's world, not historical accuracy.  And as usual, in other people's hands, the subject matter could have made for a glorified snuff film and a genuinely offensive film for African Americans.  However, the dark humor, artistry involved, and humane character development provide rewards for moviegoers with less delicate dispositions.

Surprisingly, the narrative is the most straightforward to date for a Tarantino film, with only a few traditional flashbacks along the way.  Django (Jamie Foxx) is rescued from the life of a pre-Civil War slave chain gang by dentist aka bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz).  In return for his freedom and a share of the bounty cut, Django assists Schultz in killing outlaws and bringing back their corpses.  Along the way, Schultz learns of Django's savage separation from his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), and agrees to help Django find her and buy her freedom from the infamous plantation known as Candyland, run by the sadistic and sneering Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).  As well as Django and Schultz's ruse as buyers for gladiator-like slaves or "mandigo" fighters seems to be going, Candie's personal slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) watches freeman Django with angry and wary eyes.

Most adult movie audiences are familiar with the basic Tarantino formula at this point--flashes of humor and wit alternating with flourishes of brutal violence.  The more sensitive viewer should steer clear of this production as well, with blood-and-guts splattering gun play, dog attacks, flogging, and "mandingo fighting" among the palette of gore.  Yet much of the mayhem usefully moves the plot along to its bloody conclusion, and as with many road-type stories, the journey and its storytelling style is as important, if not more so, than the destination.  The dark comedy flows from scenarios such as Schultz eloquently explaining his government-sanctioned profession to often hostile audiences, plantation owner Big Daddy (Don Johnson) trying to wrap his head around the concept of a black free man, and a man on a raid complaining of the inconveniences of his proto-Klan garb (Jonah Hill).  Empathy is given to the plight of slaves, and the "jokes" are generally on the white slave-owning perpetrators, similar to what is done with the Nazis of Tarantino's previous film.

Tarantino is abetted by many valuable contributors.  Though he seems to wrangle some of the oddest of acting ensembles, the approach works here again for the material.  In minor roles, an assortment of familiar television faces such as Johnson, Justified's Walton Goggins, Dexter's dad James Remar, and Dukes of Hazzard star Tom Wopat acquit themselves well.  Foxx and Waltz have excellent acting chemistry and provide a sympathetic pair of unlikely heroes, and DiCaprio and Jackson give Academy Award-nomination worthy performances as two detestable but extremely watchable villain counterparts.  In particular, DiCaprio almost has too much fun playing such a vile character.  One acting quibble--please stick to cameos, Mr. Tarantino.  His work with an Australian accent is awful.  

Other frequent collaborators shine as well.  Frequent Scorcese and Tarantino cinematographer Robert Richardson beautifully frames the western mountain and southern bayou location backdrops, and provides a memorable panning shot of Django and Schultz arriving at Candyland with their host Monsieur Candie, cutting back and forth to the angry glare of the awaiting Stephen.  Music soundtrack partner Mary Ramos continues her wildly inappropriate yet effective song choices for a historical period, including perhaps the best use of a Jim Croce song ever on film.

Ironically, what may be one of Django Unchained's strengths is also its principal weakness, and a spoiler alert for the remainder of this review.  The filmmaker's high wire act to make a controversial yet entertaining experience works, but it also spares his title character what dramatically should have been Django's ultimate fate.  In Peckinpah films, no one is safe, and even if the "moral imperative" or goal of the quest was met, it didn't mean the protagonists lived to see it.  Though Tarantino has given us another celebration of nerdy references and what film can do, and electrifying scenes that will remain in viewers' heads whether they want them there or not, dramatically he misses a chance at tragic gravitas with the main character Django.  By giving what most audience members want, a generally happy ending, the writer/director misses a chance at movie greatness.

My rating:  ***1/2 out of ****