Django Unchained Review

Sorry about the long break from posts. I'll try to play a little bit of catchup within the coming days. For now, though, I'm coming back with a review of the action-packed new film from Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained.

Tarantino is one of my favorite directors. Pulp Fiction is deservedly a classic, although I believe that Inglourious Basterds is his true masterpiece. Basterds especially showed the amount of influence spaghetti westerns have had on the director, as that film was basically a spaghetti western with a different setting. Now he's made an actual spaghetti western, or more correctly Southern, with Django Unchained, the story of an escaped slave who teams up with a German bounty hunter to free his wife from a sadistic plantation owner.

Now, slavery is a huge and dramatic issue, and this film handles the issue with all of the tact and respect that can be expected from Quentin Tarantino, which is to say none at all. A certain racial slur is thrown around like the word "the" and the violence shown is swift and brutal and bloody. However, it doesn't feel cheap. Tarantino is showing slavery from his, admittedly stylized, viewpoint, and it is effective at showing the horrors of owning another human being, as well as the casual racism that was around at the time.

As for the quality of the film, Django again greatly succeeds. It feels just like any other Quentin Tarantino film, focusing first on entertainment, second on great filmmaking, but containing both in droves. It is quite possibly Tarantino's most fun film, if not his best. Tarantino pays no attention to normal story structure, which is not unusual for him, but it creates an effect that is slightly jarring in the third act. However, the film is never boring, and, despite its length, is actually one of the most fast paced movies Tarantino's ever made.

As for the performances, there are really only for to even discuss. Jamie Foxx is great as the protagonist Django. He performs well in his action scenes and in his more dramatic moments, and he is a very entertaining character to watch. Unfortunately, his performance is hindered by the fact that he spends almost every scene with Christoph Waltz who is expectedly phenomenal as Dr. King Schultz, Django's partner in bounty hunting. A far cry from his Oscar winning role in Inglourious Basterds, Waltz nonetheless manages to nearly steal the entire movie again. Leonardo DiCaprio also does well as the villainous Calvin Candie. It is strange to see DiCaprio as a villain, but he has fun with the role, and hams it up suitably. Though it is a departure for DiCaprio, the role is a fairly standard villain role, fun, but nothing an avid filmgoer won't have seen before.

The most surprising performance in the film is that of Samuel L. Jackson. The very moment he steps on screen he steals the film. He is very funny, but there is always the sense that he is hiding something, making him simultaneously one of the most dramatically intriguing, and comedically entertaining characters in the entire film, and it's all thanks to Jackson.

Overall, Django is a great film. It's more of an entertaining action film as done by Tarantino, a la Kill Bill, than a one of a kind film experience, as Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds were, but it truly succeeds at everything it was shooting for. It's one of the most fun and brutally satisfying films of the year, and it is at times laugh out loud hilarious to boot. Just be prepared for the long haul, as the film is nearly three hours in length, but it is fun from beginning to end.

Grade: A-