Movie Review - Django Unchained

Django Unchained (2012)

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

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

There aren't any surprises in Django Unchained.  This is just like every other Quentin Tarantino movie you've seen.  The dialog is clever.  The acting is all above average.  The violence is outrageously over-the-top.  The direction is off-the-wall at times, but totally enjoyable.  In other words, Tarantino doesn't really bring anything new to the table here, but what he does provide is a flick that you know is inherently his own.  I will admit that I have to be in the mood to watch one of this auteur's films simply because they walk the fine line between serious film and B-movie exploitation, but admittedly that tricky balance is what makes Tarantino the filmmaker he is.  While Django Unchained is much too long for what is an incredibly simplistic story (perhaps his most basic to date), the thing still works...as long as Tarantino is your cup of tea.

Despite stretching to nearly three hours, the story of Django Unchained is relatively simple and lacks the epic scope of most movies this length.  German bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) has come to mid-1800s America for the prospect of making some easy money capturing bad guys and the biggest baddest guys of them all are the trio of the Brittle brothers.  The only problem is that King doesn't know what the Brittle brothers look like.  However, he soon discovers that the brothers recently sold away a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) and King decides to set out to find him in order to have Django assist in capturing his former captors.  [It should be noted that all that story above occurs before the movie and is simply implied.  I only include it to show you how measly the rest of the story really is.]  King meets up with and frees Django, discovering that the former slave has a flair for shooting guns and utilizes him to assist him in making a boatload of money.  In an effort to show his appreciation, King agrees to help Django track down and attempt to free his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

And that's it in a nutshell.  Two sentences stretched out over three hours pretty much sum up what we see onscreen.  Somehow, though, Django Unchained works because of clever sequences filled with witty repartee and wordplay.  Still, it's quite obvious that the film didn't need three hours as there were certain scenes that, while enjoyabe, could have just been completely snipped out without any damage to the overall product.  At the heart of the story is Django's desire to be with Broomhilda, but we never even make it to the Candie Land plantation until over halfway through the film.  With the emotional crux of the film riding on Django's reunion with his wife, it's just too long of a tease to get to that point.

While the film is called Django Unchained and I will admit that this is one of the few roles in which I could actually stand Jamie Foxx as a performer, the film belongs to Christoph Waltz who once again makes the most out of a nice role written for him by Quentin Tarantino (Waltz placed second on my 2009 Best Actor List for his Oscar-winning work in Inglourious Basterds).  Whereas Waltz's Hans Landa had meatier villainous tendencies behind him, his King Schultz is conceived a bit one-note, but Waltz makes the absolute most out of what he is given, hitting just the right amount of humor and a surprising amount of heart.

Mr. Dicaprio takes on a different role than we're used to seeing from him as the rather disgusting Calvin Candie who has a penchant for watching his slaves fight to the death in brutal one-on-one boxing matches.  Considering this is the first image we see of Calvin, his deviant nature is apparent right from the beginning.  DiCaprio, however, imbues Calvin with an odious Southern charm -- his sly smiles attempt to hide his repugnant nature.  It's a nice change of pace for the actor.  The film also contains some nice work from Kerry Washington and a surprisingly strong turn from Samuel L. Jackson whose role is actually surprisingly deep.  As Mr. Candie's head house slave Stephen, Jackson takes on a complicated character who proves to be just as damaging to his fellow African Americans as their Caucasian owner.

Ultimately, I respect Quentin Tarantino for who he is as a director and writer.  However, with the exception of Kill Bill (which I'm due to rewatch to determine whether it's as good as I hope I remember it being), I'm not sure Tarantino has it in him to create anything more than fun romps.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a cinematic jaunt, but a "jaunt" implies something fleeting and Tarantino does need to learn how to trim his ideas into something a bit more cohesive.  Still, Django Unchained is a good film filled with everything Tarantino does best...though it may certainly not appeal to all.

The RyMickey Rating:  B