Review: Django Unchained

Tarantino is one of those directors who hasn’t got many films to his name but the ones he does have are always brilliant with bloody violence, pin-sharp dialogue and memorable characters. And Django is no different, set as a tribute to the Spaghetti Westerns that Leone and Ford perfected in the 60s and as a remake/send-up to the Django franchise of this time period, Tarantino proves that Westerns still have their place in film society.

Set in the years before the Civil War, where slavery is rife and disgusting, the film follows the titular Django, a black slave who is freed by the eccentric dentist turned bounty hunter Dr King Schultz who wants Django’s help in hunting down three slave traders called the Brittle Brothers. In return, King trains Django in the ways of the bounty hunter and takes him to rescue his wife Broomhilda from sadistic plantation owner, Calvin Candie.

While it is a typical, save the wife/girlfriend/love interest storyline it’s actually got a lot going for it, the slavery aspect adds a lot because it’s a dark time of American history and here is Django dealing out hard justice. Also the arc of Django himself into fully fledged killer makes for a great side storyline that, while never fully touched upon, is always there in the background. It’s a good plot, what I will say though - and I’m not sure if I liked this or not - but the plot felt very episodic, like you could cut the film into different episodes and it would work the same way. Maybe that’s just me, maybe it’s just the pace of the film, either way it worked.

As is always the case with Tarantino flicks, the characters are all well-written and memorable, not just the main cast but seeing familiar faces like Walter Goggins, Tom Savini and Jonah Hill play vile racists was pretty funny, Goggins in particular because of a scene he has with a hot knife. That said, the main case were all brilliant, Jamie Foxx was great as Django, he starts off quiet and unintimidating but as the film goes on you realise that he’s conditioned himself to be like that as a survival instinct, his meeting with Schultz gives him a new instinct, a killer one. Django is just bad-ass throughout the film, willing to go through hell-fire for his wife and get her back. Foxx plays Django with a quiet intensity, just bubbling under the surface, ready to explode at any moment, and when he does explode at the end, man is it worth it.

Christoph Waltz gives his second great Tarantino performance, this time a hero, as Dr Schultz, a dentist turned bounty hunter for the courts. Now the whole ‘one white guy who hates slavery’ routine has been done before but this film actually uses it effectively, for one thing it makes sense, given that Schultz is German, that he wouldn’t like slavery, for another it’s this hatred of slavery that leads him to make the choices he does. What’s so great about Schultz is that between his loyalty to Django, his sharp tongue and his quick hand, he’s still a great character, hilarious in his misunderstandings of American culture but profound in his ability of murder.

Leonardo DiCaprio is amazing as Calvin, the plantation owner and villain of this story, he’s the dragon Django has to kill in order to get his princess. What I really liked about Calvin wasn’t the fact that he was a smooth and charismatic villain, it’s that he thought he was, he was so cocksure, so full of himself in believing that everyone was hanging on his every word that he couldn’t see that they were just scared of him and his slimy ways, seriously, you will never see Leo as the pretty boy again after this film because he is such a dickhole it’s unbelievable.

Teaming Leo up with an almost unrecognizable Sam Jackson as the elderly house slave Stephen was a great choice because the two of them work brilliantly together. Stephen is a friend and sometimes even a teacher to young Calvin, he looks after Calvin and in return Stephen is treated almost the same way as white people. I will admit, their friendship was so well defined, almost an uncle and nephew, that when something happens before the climatic shootout, I felt bad for them. It’s despicable of Stephen to sell out his own race in these dark times but he’s playing a shroud game and coming out on top.

Kerry Washington is good as Broomhilda, I would’ve liked to have seen more of her but we get a good sense of her character through what Django tells us, she’s a troublemaker, always fighting, always trying to escape, no matter how much it hurts her. I do think she was a little too much of just a love interest but she was a good one and her reunion with Django is a good moment.

Of course Tarantino does a great job as director, it’s obvious he loves his Westerns and he hit’s a lot of familiar notes with techniques used, namely the sudden zoom-in shots that popped up, a scroll of text is used once, even just the setting and cinematography were outstanding, each location was different in tone and look making the sprawling epic feel that much better. There’s a great deal of tension as well, especially in Candie Land because Calvin is so hard to read that he could do anything, his psychotic nature leads to two hold-your-breath scenes, both very close to each other, the first being the dining room scene with the skull and then afterwards the ‘shaking hands’ scene escalated quickly.

But it’s not a Tarantino film without some violence and good lord was this film bloody, the blood was just painted into each scene, it was thick, gooey, bright red and it went everywhere. The climatic shootout in Candie Land might just be the coolest damn scene I’ve seen all year, the use of rap music feels odd but it works. Actually the whole soundtrack is great, nothing as memorable as Dogs or Pulp Fiction but they work for the scenes they’re in, some even surprisingly so.

I did have a couple problems with the film, namely the fact that the first act just flies by but then it slows down for the second act, it’s not that big a problem it’s just that the change is quite jarring. Also the fact that just when it seems like the film’s about the end it suddenly changes gear and goes on, this wasn’t too bad, it gave us an explosive finale after the explosive finale, it was just strange to witness.

One last thing I want to talk about, the slavery aspect. People have complained that this film glorifies slavery, it doesn’t. What the film does is that is cartoonifies it, all the blood covers everything, all the villains are so over the top evil, early villain Big Daddy is a Colonel Sanders looking motherfucker, everything is pushed to the nth degree but rather than making slavery out to be fun it actually shows off the uglier side of slavery - not that any side of it isn’t ugly, it’s just a turn of phrase - and by making some aspects of slavery seem a lot more comical it made the truly disturbing scenes stand out all the more.

Django Unchained is a great film, arguably the most entertaining one Tarantino has ever done. It’s cool as hell with some great performances from Foxx, Waltz and a brilliant slime ball turn from DiCaprio. Tarantino knocks it out the park again with a darkly comic and extremely violent look at the darkest time of American History. If the violence and racism turns you off, fine, but if you’re at all curious check the film out, it’ll be worth it.

9/10