DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Set in the Antebellum South pre-Civil War, Django is a slave who is rescued by a former dentist and active bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who is looking for a partner to help locate murderous robbers. Dr. Schultz carries wanted posters and a wallet while armed with a gun under his sleeve. Django goes along for the ride, learning how to kill and maim the enemies while being a free slave. The last thing anybody has ever seen in the Deep South is a black man on a horse, and this notion is carried out through the rest of the film. Django strikes a deal with Schultz to help find Django's enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). She is working for the flamboyant and vicious plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, who deliciously plays a seething villain) and Django plans to rescue her. Easier said than done.
"Django Unchained" lets loose with whiplash cinematic flair as only Tarantino can, but his setpieces are not nearly as loud or grandiose as anything in the "Kill Bill" volumes or "Inglourious Basterds." Tarantino holds back this time, and sometimes mutes the energy of comical scenes that should be hysterical. The KKK clan who wear unsophisticated hoods over their heads struck me as humorous yet hollow, much like a similar sequence from the Coens' deadening and laborious "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" A startling flashback with Bruce Dern who sentences Django to a chain gang strikes the right chord but that is the QT's trademark - Tarantino knows how to engineer the intensity at feverish levels. Leaving aside comical bits (like Django's rather unflattering costume with ruffles that is not played up much), Tarantino also shows scenes of slaves eaten by dogs, Mandingo fighting where one is beaten to death with fists and a hammer (the term "Mandingo" was not coined at that time and comes from a film with that title), and whippings of slaves by their slave masters (though there is nothing here as graphic as "12 Years a Slave"). Such scenes are imposed into the narrative to perhaps show the grave brutality of a particularly brutal time, but they do not mesh with the spaghetti western theatrics that figure prominently in the film. I expect to see gunfire in a Tarantino movie but a movie like this at times borders on the cartoonish and the comical. I am not talking "Blazing Saddles" comedy hijinks here but the humor doesn't balance well with the realistic torture we are occasionally privy to. "Inglourious Basterds" is a whole other kettle of fish where the brief bouts of realistic violence (Nazis beaten with bats) were never played out throughout the film - they meshed with earlier scenes of violence because neither depiction was too cartoonish. With "Django," Tarantino seems to be stuck between making serious parallels to slavery and associations with a playful, slightly comical, heightened style a la Sergio Leone.
Performances range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Christoph Waltz once again proves that he knows how to handle Tarantino dialogue better than most other actors - his presence alone is phantasmagoric and magical (it is a 180 from his evil Landa in "Basterds"). Leonardo DiCaprio is a frightening Satanic Candie and his last half-hour where he tries to manipulate our heroes is pure genius to watch. Samuel L. Jackson plays an exceedingly tough house slave who grows suspicious of Broomhilda and Django. Jamie Foxx exudes toughness and a tinge of sadness (particularly when he sees how the slaves are treated) as Django that makes this one of his better roles since 2004's "Ray." Only Kerry Washington falls short of fully realizing her character - looks like she got the shaft in the editing. Nice to see character actor greats Don Stroud and Lee Horsley in a movie again. But why do we see Amber Tamblyn so fleetingly? Actually, I did not even spot Russ Tamblyn and blink and you will miss Ted Neely, the Jesus of "Jesus Christ Superstar." And can we please dispense with the QT playing any sort of role in his movies?
Do not get me wrong with this review. Aside from its flaws, "Django Unchained" is still a solid, entertaining, and compelling effort by Tarantino and it is original and spiked with enough flavor to render it as a middleweight in between the ranks of the director's crowning achievements. Despite the occasional unevenness of its violence, the movie gets better and better as it rolls along to a truly infernal finish that will leave you breathless. Just don't say you weren't warned with the nastier parts.
