“Django Unchained” comes from the insanely creative mind of Quentin Tarantino – the Oscar winning writer/director of “Pulp Fiction”, “Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2”, and 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds”, for which then relatively unknown actor (to American movie audiences) Christoph Waltz won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Waltz reunites with Tarantino for “Django”. This time he gets to play a good guy (sort of), a role that earned him his second Supporting Actor Oscar and Tarantino another screenplay Oscar.
Set in the South just before the Civil war, “Django Unchained” also stars Jamie Foxx stars as Django, a slave who is asked by dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Waltz) to assist him in finding three brothers who are wanted, dead or alive. Schultz’ job is to kill these outlaws, return their bodies to the authorities and receive his reward. Schultz doesn’t know what the brothers look like, so he needs Django’s help. In return, Django will become a free man.
After working together on a series of successful bounty hunts, Django and Schultz decided to become partners. Django reveals that he has a wife named Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) who is still a slave. The two were sold to separate slave owners and she was whipped and mistreated. They learn that she’s now working on a plantation in Tennessee. The new friends come up with a plan to free her. But they’ll have to deal with the evil owner of the plantation – Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). And this time things don’t go as smoothly as they had hoped.
Here’s some advice: if you’re not into blood and guts being splattered everywhere, intense gore and consistent use of the N-word, STAY AWAY from “Django Unchained”. However, if you’re a diehard Tarantino fan this will likely be your movie of the year. I was exhausted after seeing “Django” – not because of its running time of 2 hours and 45 minutes (we’ll get to that in a bit), but because of just how intense it is. The film features all the over-the-top action and killings you’d expect from Tarantino and then some. Does it get too extreme, especially in the last hour? Absolutely. I give Tarantino a lot of credit for being brave enough to include what he did, but some of it is very tough to watch.
Jamie Foxx does a good job as Django. He’s likeable and we root for
him to get his wife back and remain a free man. But for much of the movie, the Django character is in the background, with scenes instead being dominated by Waltz’s Dr. Schultz and DiCaprio’s Candie. Only in the last 20 minutes or so does this become Foxx’s film. I would have liked to have seen more of him as the “lead”, though it makes sense in the way Tarantino designed his story.
Foxx, who in my mind gives the best performance, did not get any awards recognition. Waltz delivers his lines with subtle humor while DiCaprio slips into a southern version of his “J. Edgar” on occasion. And Tarantino brings old pal Samuel L. Jackson back to play Candie’s personal servant. His schtick gets old fast. I kept looking for John Travolta to come dancing by.
Tarantino was reportedly editing “Django” right up until the last minute. But he made two crucial errors: 1) including unnecessary cameos of himself and Jonah Hill, which take you, as a viewer, out of the moment. and 2) not doing enough editing. Many of the both the violent and lighter scenes drag on, which really slows down the pace. There are only a handful of genuinely exciting moments in the entire movie, which surprised me.
“Django Unchained” is a hard R for strong graphic violence, disturbing images, extreme blood and gore, brief nudity and adult language. As usual Tarantino has made a film that’s out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, there’s not much in “Django” that’s extraordinary.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Django Unchained” gets a C.