Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, Don Johnson, Jonah Hill, Quentin Tarantino, Dennis Christopher, James Remar
I'm treating this review of Django Unchained as if I hadn't seen it upon its initial release in 2012. Back then, I saw Tarantino's Oscar-winning movie (for Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay) as an overly-long and overly-stylized western in which over-the-top blood and violence ruled the day. However, in this re-review (you're welcome to read the 2012 critique as a comparison to this one), while I do feel Django Unchained could have been trimmed by twenty minutes, I find Tarantino's vision of a slave who wreaks vengeance (with help from a scrupulous, anti-slavery bounty hunter) upon his wife's slaveholder wicked, yet entertaining on its intended level. With the exception of Django (Foxx), who is reserved but deadly with a firearm, and his slave wife Broomhilda (Washington), the characters in Django Unchained are larger-than-life without becoming caricatures. They fill the screen with intensity and manic zeal, while Django silently waits his time to start killing people.
As Django Unchained opens, Django is chained along with four other slaves on a cold night when a mysterious carriage with a wooden tooth dangling on its roof belonging to Dr. King Schultz (Waltz) comes by. Schultz, a former dentist turned bounty hunter, is looking for Django, who may be able to provide information on Schultz's quarry. After killing Django's owners, Django becomes Dr. Schultz's partner/student. Besides splitting the money, Schultz agrees to assist Django in his quest to reunite with his wife Broomhilda, who now belongs to the genteel, but monstrous Calvin Candie (DiCaprio) on the Louisiana plantation known as "Candieland"
Schultz and Django pose as a Mandingo buyer and his trusted, free man advisor, but Candie's oldest and most trusted slave Stephen (Jackson) smells a rat. Unlike the other slaves on the plantation, Stephen has unfettered access to Candie, who in turn treats Stephen as a father figure. In Django's mind, this makes Stephen worse than Candie because Stephen has betrayed his race by allying with Candie.
Waltz won his second Best Supporting Oscar three years after winning his first (for the memorable performances as Col. Hans Landa in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds), and Schultz is almost a 180-degree moral opposite of Landa. He abhors slavery and treats Django as an equal and a friend, with a profound sense of duty and guilt propelling him to help Django regain his wife's freedom. There is no ulterior motive, no hint of the cruelty Landa possessed while hiding behind pleasantries and good manners. Schultz instead hunts creeps and villains for court-issued bounties, and business is booming. Waltz excels in Django Unchained as he did in Inglourious Basterds, practically stealing the movie.
DiCaprio plays Candie as a vicious master who cares only about getting the most value from his slavery investments. He does so with unchecked glee, which is matched by his cruelty. Watch his response as he encounters one of his Mandingo slaves who no longer wishes to fight. It is this which sets Candie's fate, as well as Schultz's in motion with the haste of an unstoppable freight train. The final 45 minutes contains intense, gratuitous violence which might even give John Wick pause, although the movie never quite recovers when Schultz leaves the scene. However, Tarantino is a master at combining elements of his favorite genres and turning them on their ear. We have a writer-director (who also co-stars late in the film as an Australian slaveholder), who approaches his material with the excitement of a child playing with his newest toy, and that is reflected in his films, whether you necessarily think it fully works. In most cases, it does.
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