Friday, December 28, 2012

Review: Django Unchained


       Quentin Tarantino has never been one to play it safe. His movies are loud, big, violent, dirty, and smart (pay attention to that last part, Michael Bay). In his latest film, Django Unchained he's at it again. It's the rare film where you can actually hear and see studio notes being ignored. It's the first film in a long time that actually made me say “Holy Shit!” out loud. It's a love story to the old spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood, with a modern, ultraviolent twist. The film is overlong, but only because it is so stuffed full of ideas. There is a point when the film could've ended quite nicely, but then it continues for another forty minutes. But the way this movie is too long fits it just right, every moment that goes by is just as entertaining as the last. Tarantino has done it again.

       Christoph Waltz (who teamed up with Tarantino in his last film, Inglourious Basterds) is King Schultz a German dentist turned bounty hunter in the old west. He's hunting for a group of criminals known as the Brittle Brothers, but unfortunately he doesn't know what they look like, he locates a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who saw the Brittle Brothers at the plantation he used to work at. Schultz buys Django and the two of them make a pact: if Django helps Schultz find and kill the Brittle brothers Django will receive $25 for each Brittle Brother and his freedom. After riding all the way from Texas to Tennessee to find the Brittle Brothers, the two bounty hunters form a bond, and it is decided that the two of them will stay together through the winter, and Django will keep a third of the bounties they earn. Django's ultimate goal is to locate his wife, Brunhilde, who was sold to a plantation separately from him. With Schultz's help, Django traces Brunhilde to a plantation owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a bloodsport enthusiast who makes his slaves fight other slaves to the death. Schultz and Django devise a plan to gain Candie's interest and access to his plantation in order to buy Brunhilde from him, but of course not everything goes according to plan.



       From the opening credit sequence, you know you're watching a movie unlike anything else in theaters lately. The music simultaneously evokes old spaghetti western music by Ennio Morricone as well as contemporary gangster rap. Christoph Waltz is a delight, this time playing a good guy we can get behind compared to the sinister Col. Hans Landa from Basterds. Foxx on the other hand is a little flat, he seems to lack the excitement of the rest of the cast. The entire time I found myself wondering what Will Smith would have done with the role that was originally written for him. DiCaprio is amazing as he takes a departure from his usual protagonist roles as the villainous Candie. There is one scene where his acting is so intense that he accidentally cuts his hand and starts bleeding profusely, but doesn't break character. I liked to see DiCaprio's dark side, it looked like he was really having fun with it. My one issue with the film is the number of contrivances that push the plot forward. The coincidence that Schultz is German and Brunhilde speaks German is just so unlikely that it makes one's head spin. But these contrivances don't hurt the film too much, they don't feel like a deus ex machina, but they come close to taking me out of the movie. This is also arguably Tarantino's funniest film to date. There is an extended scene where proto-Klan members are deciding whether or not to wear hoods during their raid that is hilarious. However, while this film is funny, it takes the issue of slavery deadly seriously. The film makes a point of showing how awful slavery was. In one scene a man is torn apart by dogs, and it's so stomach churning and visceral that it's more effective that Amistad or Glory could ever wish to be at condemning slavery. Tarantino strays so far from what any sane studio would allow him to do that it is safe to say that Django isn't the only one who is unchained. This is Tarantino wildest movie since Kill Bill.

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