This
cross between Blazing Saddles, Spaghetti Westerns and Shaft, Django
Unchained is set in Texas in 1858. Slave Django (Jamie Foxx) has been
recently sold and is walking in chains under guard with other slaves
to their new plantation. He is freed (as the result of extreme
violence, surprised?) by a smart-talking German immigrant bounty
hunter Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) who needs him to ID some bad
guys he is tracking. Turns out Django has natural talent with a gun
so the two partner up to make money and to search for Django’s
wife. The trail ends at a notorious plantation, Candyland, owned by
Calvin Candie(Leo DiCaprio). They arrive under the ruse of buying a
fighter as their neophyte entry into the Mandingo circuit(essentially
cockfighting only with big black men who try to beat each other to
death) while actually trying to buy Django’s wife. The sale does
not go down as planned…
With
Quent’s trademark penchant for referencing past films, seeing this
movie would benefit from watching Django-a 1966 spaghetti western
said to be the most violent movie made up to that date. Django
Unchained would make more sense. Otherwise, it is simply a bloody
cartoon (rivaling The Simpson’s Itchy and Scratchy and outdoing
most Sam Peckinpah's movies). Evidently, Quent wants you to believe
that everyone is using huge caliber bullets because all wounds blow
out like Kennedy’s head. (Major quibble: Don Johnson uses a
multi-shot rifle, most likely a Henry, which didn't go into
production until 1860! C’mon Quent) White folk (except Dr Schultz)
are universally brutal and cruel. I guess Quent is also making social
commentary on how bad slavery actually was and he does have a point:
this was not merely an administrative function-human beings were
systematically and institutionally brutalized in ways exceeding most
imaginations.
But
in the end, it’s a rather unsatisfying film-with a few bits and
pieces of Tarantino’s brilliance coming through. There are
very funny parts
although they seem to be channeling Blazing Saddles-the scene where
townsfolk are gobsmacked to see “a nigger on a horse” (illegal
for a slave) is quite similar to Cleavon Little's first ride into
Rock Ridge in the earlier Brooks film. Also noteworthy was a long
scene of Regulators (Ku Klux Klan precursors) bitching about their
homemade hoods (the holes weren’t cut very well to fit). The
dialogue of Dr Schultz as the well-spoken and educated ferriner is
quite good and is a subtle send up of frontier Americans in the view
of Europeans-still held today in some quarters. Don Johnson(with
hilarious Col. Sanders goatee) and DiCaprio chew up the curtains as
despicable, bigoted and cruel plantation owners. The film ends with
Django riding off as cool as Shaft, a black angel ready to wreak a
terrible vengeance on the evil white man. One almost wonders if in
time he will start quoting Ezekiel 25:17.
I
really cannot recommend this film unless one has
to see everything
Tarantino has made. It’s a rather dull plot and aside from Dr
Schultz, the dialogue is sadly lackluster. And, it’s incredibly
bloody. It says a lot about the audience that this is the highest
grossing Tarantino film yet which is astonishing considering the
popularity of Pulp Fiction. I haven’t looked at the numbers but I
suspect the gross was pushed by the overseas markets, incidentally,
where violent videos reign supreme.
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