Django’s life changes dramatically when a German bounty hunter seeks to use him.
What They Say:
Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Academy Award(R)-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award(R)-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles–dead or alive.
The Review:
Quentin Tarantino doesn’t make a whole lot of movies and there are a few I’ve managed to not see, but by and large he’s someone that I want to see what he comes up with. After missing Inglorious Basterds in the theater, I made sure to not do that again with Django Unchained and hit it up on opening day. With a strong cast overall, a common theme to be sure in his movies over the years, it has Tarantino moving his storytelling to another time period. While a lot of his films have been present day based at the time of release, he’s done some work back in the 40’s previously and with this one he lands us just two years before the start of the Civil War. And he keeps it pretty much all in the south, sometimes the very deep south, in order to ramp up the brutality and cruelty that existed among some people at the time. Tarantino is not someone who works with a huge amount of subtlety, but sometimes you want to just be blunt as well.
The film centers around the pairing of Django (Jamie Foxx) and Shultz (Christoph Waltz) in 1858. Shultz is hunting down a trio that there’s a bounty on and the problem he has is that he doesn’t know what the trio looks like. What he needs is a slave from the plantation that they worked at previously named Django who knows what they look like. So he has to purchase Django and then start the main job after convincing Django that it’s in his best interests. If he helps Shultz, Shutlz will set him free with a nice bit of money to get him on his way. Thankfully, this initial idea is not what carries through the entire film. Instead, the hunt for the trio is dealt with in the first act and it turns out that Django is quite the natural bounty hunter. Or at least, a surprisingly gifted and natural shot with a gun or a rifle and he picks up everything else quickly as well, as Shultz shows him the trick to the showmanship and acting side of being a bounty hunter.
Which in turn leads Shultz to offer a partnership deal with Django for a winter season. The two click well and Shultz, who is truly uncomfortable with slavery, finds the partnership a way to assuage his short term guilt over using Django. But it grows from there as well Django reveals his past that lead him to be sold off and in Texas instead of where he was originally from in the deep south. Discovering that he was married is a surprise to Shultz and getting some of the details of it makes it clear how difficult it will be for Django to get his wife back. So the partnership extends into that, though both men have to do some low down dealing with others to get the plan into motion. A very lengthy plan at that which takes them to a large scale plantation called Candie Land, where the current family head played by Leonard DiCaprio is involved with Mandingo fighting.
Django Unchained plays out against a long run time of 165 minutes and it definitely starts to feel it along the way. In a way, it feels like a four act film instead of the traditional three. The first act works well, especially since Christoph Waltz isn’t taken out of the picture early and it’s just a Django movie from there on out, and it segues well into the second act as we see the pair growing as partners in the bounty hunting gig. Shultz takes to him quite well and Christoph Waltz really makes him a very fun character to watch, both when he’s on his own but also when he plays against just about everyone else, especially Django. He takes on such a responsible feeling for Django because of his own heritage that it doesn’t feel forced and you can still see how it works to his advantage overall.
While the first two acts work well, things go in the expected direction in the third act where Django discovers where his wife is and he and Shultz put the elaborate plan into motion. Well, it’s just overly contrived and obvious, but it feels more that it’s just to our understanding of the situation rather than being pretty accurate for the time. The use of Candie and his place and the cast that flows from there, particularly the use of a rather quirky Samuel L. Jackson, gives it all a surreal feel. It works more with dialogue than anything else for it and it’s a lot of fun to see the kind of obvious dance that goes on. The banter is really good and seeing the tension ramp up as you wait for things to just blow builds in a way that has some seeming false starts, but it just makes it all the more fun.
Well, fun being subjective of course. It’s only here at this point that the film really feels like a full on Tarantino film. There’s violence to be had throughout, some of it with a bit of comedy such as what happens to one particular plantation owner, but it’s the huge fight within the Candie mansion that takes the cake. It’s just so blood filled and the bodies fall with such regularity that it does hit comedic levels at times even though that’s not exactly the intent. What hurts it some is that as it reaches a crescendo, it comes across as a false ending instead. Which is what leads into the seeming fourth act. I do like what happens, but on top of everything else it just comes across as far too long and too much. Django isn’t exactly superhuman here, but the way it just has such a combination of skill and luck that works in his favor, it pushes beyond the limit a few times. And in this last leg of the run, it just ends up hurting it more than helping, even as enjoyable as it is.
In Summary:
Django Unchained has a lot going for it and it definitely has the feeling of a “Southern” version of a spaghetti western that Tarantino wanted to create. It has a lot of great performances here and that all get into their characters really well, though Samuel L. Jackson’s character stands out as the most awkward and out of place in a lot of ways. The settings are well done, I loved that the photography wasn’t traditional western but had some of those long vista views that we rarely get in a Tarantino film and it definitely doesn’t hold back with some of the brutality and cruelty that comes from the time. It’s certainly not saying everyone was like this, but it’s a big part of the time and the problem. It doesn’t shy away from it and I can imagine that while there’s the Tarantino aspects to it, for some people it will be revelatory that such things did happen. There’s a lot to like with Django Unchained and I’m definitely interested in revisiting it down the line. It’s certainly worth seeing on the big screen and experiencing it there.
Grade: B+
