Review - Django Unchained

At the Theater- "Django Unchained" - 

Writer/Director/Producer Quentin Tarantino's 8th feature film is equal parts high entertainment mixed with ill-advised excess. Christoph Waltz is worth the price of admission, though some of Tarantino's expected Directorial flourishes are starting to prove unwieldy.  Fans of the Director will once again be treated to his signature fantastic dialogue and sudden shocking moments of violence, though this particular fan must admit to being a bit disheartened to find an effort far less nuanced and less interested in restraint than any of his prior films.  It's entertaining enough, but I was hoping for something... different.

I believe most of my issues with the film stem from the loss of his longtime collaborator and Editor, Sally Menke, who passed in 2010.  Menke edited every previous Tarantino feature, receiving Oscar Noms in the field for Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction.  Even the best need to be reigned in a bit every now and then, though it appears no one had the heart to take Quentin to task when he needed it with this release. 

My favorite "Spaghetti Western" is Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West- mostly because it's his least Leone-ish (and least Spaghetti-ish) Western effort... in short, Leone matured and broke from the of-the-moment flashy gimmickry that defined the sub-genre.  Django Unchained finds Tarantino as brash and as over the top as ever, a filmmaker so thoroughly proud of his deployment of derivative and disposable B-Movie stylings that he overlooked an ideal opportunity to create something of poignancy and power.  It was well within his grasp, he just didn't recognize it.

While Inglourious Basterds felt as if there were a few integral pieces missing in regards to it's narrative (how many of the "Basterds" in question were fleshed out characters?  What was the story with Jacky Ido's "Marcel"?- I'm sure it was interesting...), I was often mesmerized by the fluidity of Tarantino's direction and the strength of the writing behind the dialogue throughout- it was an original experience, and I've seen a ton of WWII films.  Hell, it was nothing like 1978's The Inglorious Bastards on which it was supposedly based...

Django Unchained features a linear narrative (as opposed to the non-linear storyline-hopping featured in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, The Kill Bill films and Basterds) that seems somewhat undercooked and hastily slapped together with only a moderate amount of reflection- it's missing that certain amount of refinement that each one of those other aforementioned films possessed to considerably greater degrees. Furthermore, there's an undeniably ham handed and manipulative approach to it's subject matter- set in 1858, Tarantino paints a simplistic, almost comic-bookish pre-Civil War landscape rife with every despicable, stereotypical character that's ever graced a silver screen.  There are only a few key characters of any substantial depth with a host of cardboard caricatures in rickety support.  The film has far more in common, stylistically speaking, with Sam Raimi's The Quick And The Dead (a 1995 flick I disliked) and Mario Van Peeble's Posse (hated it) than with Unforgiven (loved it), Tombstone (loved it) and Silverado (yeah, loved it).  Strangely, there's very little here that's remindful of Sergio Leone's Man With No Name Trilogy, as well...

Jamie Foxx's "Django" plays out more like some kind of wise-cracking whirlwind than a fully fleshed out human being- it's as if the Director wished to transplant "John Shaft" into the period to wreak all sorts of bloody justice but forgot to add enough humanistic touches (which the Shaft movies DID posses) to help endear the audience to the character.  I'll admit freely that I'm not the biggest fan of Foxx and believe there's too much of the actor's true personality here on display (as opposed to tapping into a character)- his Django is a little too sure, a little too flippant and a ton too precise from the outset. He's understandably full of hatred for those who have bound, whipped and shackled him his entire life and determined, at all costs, to be reunited with his wife (shown as a haunting vision throughout his journey)- that's about all the character building we're subjected to, with very little back-story regarding his personal history to speak of.  There's also remarkably little in the way of a commanding presence with the character- Eastwood had the inherent presence and likeability to carry the Man With No Name films with relatively little dialogue or back story to speak of- Foxx simply doesn't have that indefinable "it".  I would have loved to have seen Idris Elba tackle the role... (***)

Christoph Waltz, on the other hand, gives the most outright entertaining and charismatic performance of 2012 as the Dentist turned Bounty Hunter, "Dr. King Schultz", who frees Django, takes him under his wing and "teaches" him the killing for money trade- it was a joy to hang on his every word and movement as an actor who is clearly on top of his game and still very much in his prime.  Tarantino is smart enough to realize this and supplies the actor with ample amount of quality material and screen-time.  It's his presence that powers the movie.

Leonardo DiCaprio is also excellent as the reprehensible plantation owner, "Calvin Candie"- his character doesn't arrive until well into the last act, but it's a highly memorable and impressive turn that will surely shock some of his fan base.  He's growing by leaps and bounds as an actor with every film he's in and I'm confident in placing him amongst the very best young talents in Hollywood.  Tarantino would have been better served to have introduced his character earlier in the film to help built that headed for a showdown feel...

Samuel L Jackson, as Candie's right hand House Slave and confidant, "Stephen", is a despicably devious sort and Jackson plays the character to the absolute hilt- you can tell he had a lot of fun doing it.

The very pretty and talented Kerry Washington portrays Django's love interest and driving motivational force, "Broomhilda Von Shaft" (yeah, that's an obvious nod to Roundtree's Detective)- the actress is given very little to do or say, with only a few lines in the entire picture.  It's a misstep by the Director amongst many...

There's a painfully ridiculous segment (at least in this viewer's opinion) where Django is revealed to be a miraculous natural as a quick-draw marksman- with apparently no training in the art to speak of, his lifelong slave is able to square off against a target and repeatedly strike dead-center bullseyes as Dr. Schultz looks on approvingly, merely providing reactionary commentary.  There's plenty of gorgeous shots of Django and Shultz riding across the scenic countryside through every seasonal setting, yet there's nothing in the way of those little moments of training that a viewer would expect given the situation- it's either an oversight or a victim of trimming due to run-time concerns.  Whatever the case may be, the absence of those scenes ultimately comes across as awkward (see the 1966 film Nevada Smith to see it done right).  We've all seen those groan inducing moments in countless films where what would appear to be a complete, fish-out-of-water novice hoists a weapon for the first time and somehow charges into deadly battle to display some kind of crazy ability to match and best all challengers with ease...C'mon, Man!

A anti-climactic gun battle drowned out by cartoonish geysers of blood and undermined by the painfully out of place James Brown/2PAC remix track "Payback/Unchained" (which comes across as a marketing concession made by a much lesser filmmaker catering to a much younger audience than myself) only works to pull a viewer from the experience and render the moment as weightless- to help make matters even worse, there were apparently 50 faceless gunmen that popped out of the woodwork to give viewers even more exciting options to see where a bad guy can be shot (this all worked so much better in the Crazy 88 showdown in Kill Bill Volume 1...).  The scene would have played brilliantly in slow motion, possibly set to a piece of classical music, and with about one third the amount of henchmen.  The gun battle featured in Kevin Costner's Open Range, for instance, was lean, violent and highly realistic- it was devoid of any stylistic trappings and was so well staged and choreographed that I'll mark it as the best shootout in any Western I've ever seen.

My favorite sequence of the film involves Django outsmarting a trio of Slave Traders which include Tarantino (sporting a conspicuously out of place close shave and a surprisingly serviceable Australian accent), John Jarratt (Wolf Creek) and Michael Parks.  It's the best conceived and executed scene in the film and concludes with a crowd pleasing bang.
Most will find enjoyment with a sequence involving a horde of night raiders experiencing wardrobe malfunctions-  it's absolutely hilarious and will undoubtedly bring to mind Blazing Saddles...

Expect appearances from a delightfully unsavory Don Johnson (decked out like Colonel Sanders), James Remar (48 Hours) in two roles (a peculiar move that hints at another actor dropping out at the last minute), James Russo (Open Range), Tom Wopat ("Luke" in The Dukes Of Hazard), Jonah Hill, Rex Linn (CSI Miami), MC Gainey (Con Air), Walton Goggins (FX's Justified), Bruce Dern, Don Stroud (Joe Kidd), Dennis Christopher (Breaking Away) and a cameo from the original titular character of 1966's Django, Franco Nero. 

There are also a few cameos of the blink and you'll miss 'em variety featuring the likes of Robert Carradine (Revenge Of The Nerds), Michael Bowen ("Buck" in Kill Bill), James Parks, Amber Tamblyn (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), Zoe Bell (Death Proof), Russ Tamblyn and Makeup Effects wizard, Tom Savini.

In an all-too brief scene where Django and Schultz ride passed a cabin and are greeted by a Sheriff, I knew I'd seen the actor portraying the lawman somewhere before but couldn't quite place him.  I was strangely bugged by this for the rest of the film and later made a point of hitting up IMDB to figure out who it was- turns out the actor in question was none other than Lee Horsley from the short lived TV show of the early 1980's, Matt Houston.  It was cool to see him again and I wish there had been a little something more from him- I also realized later on that he was the only Caucasian American who was friendly towards Django in the entire film... and that was about a 3 second scene.

As expected with any Tarantino release, there are a number of inspired musical selections throughout (with 2 stinkers)- I enjoyed his inclusion of a handful of Louis Bacalov and  Ennio Morricone selections made famous in classic 60's Westerns, along with other selections such as, "Freedom" by Anthony Hamilton, "I Got A Name" by Jim Croce and "Who Did That To You?" by John Legend.

With Django Unchained, I was hoping for a thrilling, Epic Western from a capable filmmaker with an uncanny knack for somehow producing fresh material while simultaneously paying homage- what I brought out of the experience was an uneven, though serviceable revenge fantasy that couldn't quite take advantage of the potential within it's own framework.  In the grand scheme of Westerns (or "Southerns", in this case), it's merely a curious side note. I'll check it out again somewhere down the line, but it's nowhere on my favorite Westerns list.

Django Unchained- 7.5 out of 10

For what it's worth, the Films of Quentin Tarantino -

Reservoir Dogs             8.5
Pulp Fiction                 9.0
Jackie Brown               8.0
Kill Bill Vol. 1-           9.0
Kill Bill Vol. 2-            8.5
Death Proof                 7.5
Inglourious Basterds   8.5

***Check out Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte in Buck and The Preacher or Ozzie Davis in The Scalphunters for prime examples of strong black characters in Westerns- I wish there had been more of Danny Glover in Silverado, for what that's worth.