Django Unchained (***½)
Directed
by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring:
Jamie Foxx, Christophe Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry
Washington, Don Johnson, Walton Goggins
Seen:
February 11th 2013
***½
Out of ****
In the tradition of the old
spaghetti westerns, Tarantino labels Django Unchained as a Southern, a movie to
deal with the atrocities committed under slavery without having it seem like a
big issue movie. And in typically off-kilter Tarantino way, Django Unchained is
utterly entertaining and at times extremely funny while never making a ridicule
out of the issue of racial tension and slavery in late 19th Century
America.
Close to the small Texas town of
Greenville, a group of slaves are being driven by the Speck Brothers, and among
them is the titular character, Django (Foxx). The convoy is stopped by Dr. King
Schultz (Watlz), a German dentist. More importantly though, Shultz is also a
bounty hunter, looking for Django, and he goes ahead attempting to haggle for
Django. When things go wrong Schultz easily dispatches of one of the brothers,
and leaves the other at the mercy of the leftover slaves after leaving the
money for Django. Schultz wants Django for his knowledge of the Brittle
Brothers, for whom he has a warrant, and offers Django his freedom for his
assistance in finding them. Django has his own mission too, finding and freeing
his wife Broomhilda (Washington), who was sold off as a slave to the very
intimidating Calvin Candie (DiCaprio).
Candie is seemingly pleasant, but
he is soon revealed as a brutal slave-owner, who runs death-matches between
slaves called Mandingo fights, as well as being excessively hard on those
slaves who, fearing for their inevitable death in these fights, try to flee.
Schultz and Django devise a plan to get Broomhilda back, a ruse designed to
fool Candie into selling her to them as an add-on with one of his fighters as
the main driver for the deal. The plan is risky, and with the devious and very
much Stockholm Syndrome driven senior house slave Stephen (Jackson) lurking
around the edges, things are bound to go difficult and very violent sooner
rather than later.
Tarantino crafts a movie that,
while addressing horrible wrongs committed against fellow human beings, puts
more of a focus on the effect of those wrongs on the perpetrators and those who
come close to them. One of the most harrowing and memorable scenes in the movie
is a close-up on Christoph Waltz’s face while he must endure a torturous death
of a slave to stay under cover, and the movie certainly does not have only one
such scene. Tarantino does not revel in violence, does not glorify it, but he
certainly uses it very effectively and sometimes unsettlingly. There is no
doubt that this is an accurate portrayal of how slaves were treated even as
bodies fly around after being shot – an effect that in some way dulls the
effect of the violence, much like the Crazy 88 fight in another fantastic
Tarantino film, Kill Bill (Vol. 1).
Waltz is absolutely great as the
scheming Dr. Schultz, touching now and then on the greatness he achieved as
Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. Foxx gives a very straightforward and
at times honestly funny performance as Django, and he is, as the main
character, relatively understated in his role. DiCaprio gives the antithesis of
Foxx’s performance in a deliriously insane Candie, a man who has become so
corrupt it even shows in his teeth. These three carry the movie, with Samuel L.
Jackson and Kerry Washington adding a massively strong base for them to work
with. Django Unchained is very violent and very tongue in cheek while remaining
true to the seriousness of the material. Above all though, while informing in
the most unconventional way, it is also a great movie, another feather in
Tarantino’s cap.
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