Film review: Django Unchained

Film review by Tom Hunt

Note: The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of RetoxMagazine.com

Django Unchained

The much anticipated Django Unchained has finally been released into cinemas around the country and after all the hype, all the controversies does it live up to expectations? Absolutely.

Story

Django Unchained follows the story of Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave freed by a bounty hunter posing as a dentist Dr. King Schultz, played wonderfully by Christoph Waltz. Schultz despises slavery, but circumstances dictate he needs to use Django for one of his bounties. Schultz grows to know Django, learns from him even and admires him. He offers him a chance to partner with him in his bounties before helping him find his enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Their adventures take them through the south of America during winter, and once the snow has melted Django is a changed man. He's now smart, independent and most importantly, dangerous. In their quest to find Broomhilda they come across Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) who takes them to his home, 'Candie Land', where they meet a mean spirited, deceptive head slave, Stephen, played by Samuel L Jackson who always seems to work wonderfully as a villain in a Quentin Tarantino flick. Events play out in the typical Tarantino way and by the end of the near 3 hour epic we're left with an incredibly powerful, fun and I dare say important film that adds yet another title to the list of good modern Westerns.

The Key Players

The film starts heavy with the 'Western' production, but that's only half of it and it eases off to let the story do the talking. There's wonderful chemistry between Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx, seeing how both of their characters evolve and grow. Christoph Waltz once again thrives under Tarantino's direction, but in a drastically different role to Inglourious Basterds. This is a great credit to the actor who could have found himself easily type cast as 'the villain' in Hollywood movies. Jamie Foxx as Django is brilliant from start to finish. A natural gunslinger, Django goes through a great transformation of the broken down slave, who's been through horror after horror to turn into the fearless hero we expect him to be. Schultz tells Django a wonderful tale upon hearing his wife’s name and recognising it to be German. In this scene there's a small but terribly powerful moment where Schultz realises the man that Django can become, and with this he decides to help him in his quest. At first Django is a bit of a wild card, a bit of a hot head but as time goes on he manages to keep up the pretence of the 'character' he has to play round Calvin Candie, as instructed by Schultz.

Then there's a shift, as Django becomes more confident, more powerful in his role, Schultz begins to realise they may be in much deeper water than they anticipated. Towards the end of the film Django has a wonderful line, “Who knew Burgundy would be my colour”. It could simply be in the literal sense that he's wearing a rich colour like Burgundy for the first time, being that he used to be a slave he wouldn't have had a chance to wear such an outfit. It could however be a metaphor for his acceptance of all the blood that's now on his hands. He started his journey so morally conflicted, such as gunning down a father (although a wanted criminal) in front of his son.

Django Unchained official film poster.

Now Django has come full circle and is the killer that Schultz trained him to be, if not more so. He's no longer confined by what's right and what's wrong. He's a killer, and he's accepted it. He's at first filled with rage, his first bounty is one of revenge. He isn't conflicted with the kill because he's blinded with the suffering that was instilled on him, which we see in parts through the film. It makes for difficult viewing, but we get the payoff from the revenge Django dished out.

Then Tarantino manages to add climatic moment, dipped with comedy, and the two go together hand in hand. This is the running theme for the entire film. Just when you think you can't handle the heat any longer the mood is lifted, even if it's just for a split second. It's difficult to count just how many adrenaline filled scenes there actually are in Django Unchained, but it's enough to make sure in its near 3 hours you're never bored. Whether it's a shoot-out, a rouse the characters are trying to pull or just interaction between the main players (and this film is filled with many exciting 'face offs').

It's difficult to choose a favourite performance between Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L Jackson. All performed superbly. Jamie Foxx is a commanding lead as would be expected. Christoph Waltz brings a charming and cooler than ice performance. Samuel L Jackson plays the 'fun' villain that we know he can be as the head slave Stephen, who's been in the family for years. Stephen provides interesting viewing because he's putting on an act, for everyone around him, an appearance he puts on to satisfy 'the white folk'. There's a hint that Candie is aware of this act, but he seems to be the only one. Stephen is as smart as he is vindictive, which allows him to keep his power. Leonardo DiCaprio had a great outing as the disgusting, unforgiving plantation owner Calvin Candie, the kind of role you'd think he'd been playing for years, but the reality is this is his first fully fledged villain role. Calvin Candie is a man who likes to know he's powerful, a man not to be trifled with. He doesn't seem to have any boundaries but doesn't always play to this. He could quite easily kill Django at any point he wanted, no-one would bat an eyelid but there's more to it than that. He wants to show he's in control, that he has the power and he's holding all the cards, that's much more satisfying for him.

There's Method To The Madness

Amongst all the chaos we get some honesty, brutal it may be, but honest none the less. Tarantino didn't put this into entertain people; it's there to make us uncomfortable, to make us think. It's the sort of authenticity that was missing from the likes of Lincoln, which doesn't really tell us anything at all about slavery. Tarantino has been criticised in the past for the violence in his films, and films in general for their excessive violence; but violence has been around a lot longer than films and it's unfair to point the finger. It's admirable however, amongst all the debating that Tarantino stays true to himself and his style of storytelling. Yes the film has an extreme amount of violence but these were violent and dangerous times, where a slave would be savagely beaten, and in an ironic way Tarantino's over the top gore and violence actually highlights the realism of how brutal and nasty they were. The over usage of the word 'n***a' provides an uncomfortable harsh reality around the times of slavery and how derogatory people were. Tarantino brings this to the big screen, do we like it? No. We're not meant to, that's the point, are we smiling and laughing while these characters throw this term around, absolutely not. It's there to add a sense of accuracy into a film that is otherwise quite outrageous.

I'm not a Tarantino 'mark' by any means. I enjoy his films, but he isn't the be all and end all of the film industry, he just has a very flamboyant way of telling stories. He's stylish, but sometimes that style can seem a little empty. Django Unchained is Tarantino back to his best though. Not only is it a Western, which are always riveting, it's also a fun Western, but also an important film regarding slavery. Very rarely do we get films directly tackling the issue of slavery, but Django Unchained bravely does this, and does so to a good degree. It might be controversial but tackling such a touchy subject like slavery is likely to be, if done right.

DVD Extras

Some questions are to be asked about Django Unchained. Where did the Australians come from, for example? It sounds like plenty of scenes have been cut, the Australians back story, how Broomhilda became a slave to Calvin Candie and much more. Expect the DVD extras to be packed. We can only hope that Tarantino gives us a much longer directors cut. As Samuel L Jackson has joked, a 5 hour directors cut will be released on DVD (Yes please). It would be brilliant for Tarantino to include a nice little follow up scene for 'The Hooded Man', arriving home, still angry and having to explain to his wife what actually happened, more hooded man can only mean more laughs.

Funniest Scene Of The Year

'The Hooded Man' comes from the films funniest scene, a skit if you will, with Big Daddy's (Don Johnson) Klansmen, billed as 'The Regulators' struggling with their hoods as they're about to ambush Django and Schultz. A risky scene to add to the film but it pays dividends, as it'll leave you roaring with laughter for about 3 minutes straight. The ridiculous situation that these men are in on the brink of trying to kill our heroes, and something so trivial is discussed in great length, allows us to not hate them, but laugh at them for being simply a bunch of inexperienced idiots. Django being set 2 years before the Civil War means these characters are just a nod to the KKK's formation, highlighting the tensions which were around at the time. Regardless, the scene breaks up Tarantino's tension perfectly providing one of the biggest laughs in cinema you're likely to see all year.

While Django Unchained pays homage to Spaghetti Westerns, and the original Django with a cameo from Franco Nero (the original Italian Django, 1966), it's very much its own film, it's a Tarantino film. He's always had a knack of (and fun with) adding perfect humorous moments during tense dramatic scenes, to build up scenes to the breaking point of tension, then releasing that tension in a satisfying way. His ability to use gallows humour at the opportune moment speaks volumes as a film maker, not that his competence was ever in question, it just highlights once again what an intriguing, talented and overall fun film maker he is, and Django Unchained may well go down as one of his best.