Django Unchained

I know I’m about to incur the wrath of many a film fan, but I have to be honest: Prior to Inglourious Basterds, I always felt Quentin Tarantino was overrated.

His proponents lavish praise on his dialogue and style, but I always saw through those trappings. Underneath all the endless talking and references to old movies, I never found any substance. What little plot his films had just seemed like ways to loosely tie together pieces of excess just for shock value, or to drop a lengthy dialogue exchange that has little or nothing to do with the story (I mean honestly, who cares what they call a Quarter Pounder in France?). For all the flash, his films were empty and shallow.

So what changed with Inglourious Basterds? For one, the film actually had a good plot. A purely fantasy plot, maybe (and one that notably alters history), but a compelling and interesting one. But moreover, instead of just aimless babble for dialogue’s sake, the extended exchanges between the characters actually had a point, subtly building tension in some scenes and making for offbeat humor in others. For all the bloody splatter on display, the movie was actually something close to sophisticated.

Well, sophisticated doesn’t exactly fit the description for Django Unchained. It’s a very brutal, bloody, messy picture, with more offensive content than you’d think Hollywood would allow these days. But along with the extreme excess, Tarantino again presents an interesting story, depicted with a style reminiscent of the Spaghetti Westerns of old. I must say, the director is starting to grow on me.

The time is just prior to the Civil War, when slavery was still rampant in the Deep South. Against this backdrop, German dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) rescues the titular slave (Jamie Foxx) from a chain gang in Texas. In exchange for leading him to three fugitives, Schultz offers Django his freedom, and the two become partners in the bounty hunting trade.

Foxx adds a sort of blaxploitation twist to the laconic Man with No Name-like archetype, while Waltz is essentially a good-guy version of his charming but ruthless character in Inglourious Basterds (I got the feeling the character was made German just because Tarantino wanted to work with him again; fine by me, because he’s fantastic). The two play off each other well with quick wit while exhibiting all the qualities of classic Western antiheroes.

In fact, though ostensibly a tribute to old Westerns (the title character is even named after a character in several Spaghetti Westerns, one of whose portrayers makes a cameo), the picture actually stands on its own as a quality entry in the genre, with a few more modern touches. Still, the movie finds some time to humorously send up the genre (the most hilarious scene, featuring Don Johnson leading a dimwitted lynching party, is like a deleted scene from Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles). 

That’s about the first hour of the film. Then, the two leads travel to Mississippi and hatch a plan to rescue Django’s wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the suave, psychotic plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), and the tone changes in more ways than one. Here, Tarantino’s penchant for long exchanges of dialogue comes on display, and though some scenes go on a little long, they will please the filmmaker’s longtime fans. More noticeably, though, the picture takes a turn for the unpleasant in its unflinching depiction of slavery, and that’s an understatement.

The human bondage and racism on display is shocking. Not shocking like the uncomfortable feeling you get watching parts of Gone with the Wind in today's world, but turn-your-stomach shocking. In fact, it goes so far in depicting such brutality that it almost seems like it must be exaggerated. Maybe the things onscreen really did happen, and Hollywood has sanitized our vision of what slavery was really like. If that’s the case, Tarantino deserves credit for not holding anything back in depicting a cruel chapter in American history. But it seems like he's not so much trying to reflect the time as just be as mean and vile as possible.

This is especially the case with DiCaprio’s Candie, who crosses the line from a typical slave owner who sees people as property to a sadistic psychopath who takes pleasure in inflicting horrible pain. The actor’s obviously pushing to be as awful a human being as he can (so much that he actually comes to a point where it’s hard to take him seriously anymore because he’s just so over-the-top). The most offensive character, however, is Samuel L. Jackson as an aging house slave so broken that he’s arguably as bad as his master. It’s hard to tell if he’s trying to play it straight or an absurd caricature, as the character walks a razor-thin line being cruelly funny and incredibly sad. Either way, it’s appalling. Jackson deserves an Oscar just for the fearlessness in taking on the role.

So after describing all this unpleasantness, why am I recommending Django Unchained? Because all the racially obscene content makes the violent retribution—and it’s very bloody, indeed—all the more satisfying. Even the most politically correct pacifist viewer won’t be able to deny the basest pleasure in seeing such awful characters get theirs. This one requires a pretty strong stomach and even thicker skin, but for those with both, it's the feel good kill whitey movie of the year. If that statement offends you, see something else!