Django Unchained (2012) - Review

Originally published August 2015

I'm certainly not the biggest fan of Quentin Tarantino. I like most of his movies and consider him a very talented director. There are certain quirks about his movie-making techniques, however, that can make my opinion swing one way or another. For instance, despite all the reasons why I should like Kill Bill, I don't. So with Tarantino taking the plunge into the Western genre (a genre that I am definitely no authority on), I didn't know what to expect.

Much to my surprise and pleasure, I found myself enjoying the movie a great deal, and it ended up being much more enjoyable than the other movie I watched that day. I found it clever, artistic, and tasteful despite some of the distinct Tarantino flavor.

Pros

• Cristoph Waltz is fantastic and a delight to watch the whole way, partially due to the charming nature of his character being both eloquent and ruthless, as well as how well he seamlessly slips into the role

• Jamie Foxx does a commendable job playing Django, a (former) slave who may not be educated but is a very cunning individual. Foxx is able to show the character's intellectual growth throughout the film with subtle changes like mild improvements to his speech patterns and confidence

• Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as the plantation owner, Monsieur Candy, is captivating simply because of how he's able to play such a despicable person who has a false sense of entitlement and eloquence, but a significant level of charisma that you end up liking him just a tiny bit

• So intense is Leo's performance that he ends up cutting his hand in the table scene, and not only does he stay in character, but he also uses his own blood to further intimidate the other characters

• I appreciated the variety in the soundtrack, with homages to old Western movie songs and some modern hip-hop songs to contrast the flavor

• The action is intense and satisfying

• I enjoy all the little quirks of the movie that are meant to reference the style and direction of old Western films, like zoom-ins and particular camera angles

• I like how some actors reappeared as different characters later in the film, something I imagine was common in cheap westerns to help cut costs of an extensive cast without losing the body count

• Samuel L Jackson provides yet another interesting character and dynamic that is fun to watch

• Certain characters behaved in surprising and exciting ways

Cons

• The violence is almost cartoonish at times with how over the top it is, and while it's not a big deal, Django doesn't feel like it's so absurd of a movie that it quite fits, especially being a western

• Django is a little too much of a natural and is something of a superhero, which is not so believable with his humble beginnings

• While it's Django's story, Christoph Waltz's character steals the show, so it isn't really until the end that the protagonist finally feels like the protagonist

• The movie is 2 hours and 45 minutes long, and starts to feel long by the last act. Yet it speaks to the pacing of the film that it is only 15 minutes shorter than Wolf of Wall Street and it took until the 2.5 hour mark to feel long.

Additional Thoughts

The movie essentially has 3 acts with the first and third acting as brief bookends to the main act in the middle. The final act is over almost too quickly, but it still is kind of where most of the satisfying action and cartoonish violence comes in.

Unlike movies like Wolf of Wall Street, which feel like much of the distasteful social content is brushed aside and handled without any care or attention, Django Unchained feels like it handles its social issues with intelligence and the appropriate reverence within the boundaries of the movie's intention. First and foremost, Django Unchained is meant to entertain you with its protagonists: the cool former slave and the only decent white guy of the South who goes around killing racists and bigots. It doesn't ignore the social issues taking place in the background of the plot, but it handles them with care so as not to detract from the intended experience. The violence done to the slave owners and their fellow white bigots is over the top because the movie wants to entertain us, while the violence that is done to Django and other slaves is more realistic, uncomfortable, and edited erratically to prevent us from being able to focus on the violence; it doesn't detract too much from the experience, but it still makes us a little more appropriately anxious.

Image: Columbia Pictures

The last thing I'll mention is that Tarantino may have stumbled onto a goldmine of premises for his movies with Inglorious Basterds and now this. It makes me wonder if he will keep up with the pattern of having his heroes systematically kill the villains of history, whose behavior was accepted by their peers at the time. Perhaps the next movie from Tarantino will take place in Europe during the Middle Ages and will be about a band of rebellious protestants led by a bad-ass Martin Luther taking on members of the Spanish Inquisition - Inglorious Luther: Unchained.

Worth Seeing?

Unless you have an issue with excessive use of the N-word in a historical context or a problem with people bursting with tomato sauce squibs like an exploding Prego jar, Django Unchained is worth a watch. It's on Netflix streaming now and comes easily recommended.