Django Unchained Review

Quentin Tarantino follows up his incredible Inglourious Basterds with Django Unchained, which serves as a fitting follow-up, as Django is another historical revenge fantasy, but this time around, on a more personal scale.  While Inglourious Basterds cast its net wide, focusing on a huge cast of characters and tracing their paths to one climactic scene of unforgettable wish fulfillment, Django Unchained carves a more focused narrative in the pre-Civil War South that still serves as a thrilling bit of stylized comeuppance for the institution of slavery that doesn't go to the revisionist extremes of its predecessor.

Django Unchained revolves around the relationship between a German bounty hunter/former dentist Dr. King Schultz (Inglourious MVP Christoph Waltz) and the slave (Jamie Foxx in the titular role) he purchases to help him track down a trio of wanted brothers.  The film is a sort of buddy comedy, with Waltz and Foxx sharing the screen for most of the film's considerable runtime.  The two have a wonderful chemistry, with Waltz's peerless articulation and Foxx's more modern delivery forming an interesting juxtaposition as they tackle Tarantino's typically wonderful male banter, which ranges from Dr. Schultz teaching Django what bounty hunting is, to recounting the German legend of Siegfried, one of the film's standout scenes, which helps him decide to help Django rescue his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the fiendish plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Obvious in even this brief synopsis is Tarantino's fiendishly clever, colorful writing.  He names his characters, plots his action, and crafts his dialogue with an instantly recognizable flair, and Django represents one of the auteur's finest hours.  Tarantino draws from the Western genre to create a generic context for the heroes' journey to accompany the historical one, creating a multi-layered world that pops and surprises while still feeling familiar, both in its content, form, and direction.  Robert Richardson's cinematography pays beautiful homage to Westerns, with painted skies and long shots of open plains.  Tarantino is a master of pastiche, creating a beautiful period world and peppering it with hilarious, anachronistic dialogue and surprising musical choices to add texture unlike that found in any other filmmaker's work.

It's wonderful to have Waltz chewing through Tarantino's dialogue once again, and as was the case in Inglourious, he's brilliant as Dr. King Schultz.  Waltz is charming, dangerous, and cheekily flippant about slavery, seeing its advantages for his particular situation but nonetheless remaining decidedly not keen on the whole thing.  Foxx gets to explore the many faces of Django, as the character plays the part of a snooty fighting expert when infiltrating Candie Land, giving Django the chance to mouth off to the white men who have made his life so miserable.  Django is a quick shot, a devoted husband, and a man on a mission; he's a fascinating protagonist, and Foxx delivers a stylish but subtle performance, and even does a bit of full-frontal nudity in the process.

The movie is all but stolen, though, by the supporting duo of Leonardo DiCaprio and Sameul L. Jackson, who does his best work in years.  DiCaprio is often cited as being the most serious actor in Hollywood, always delving into psychologically disturbed, brooding, or depressed characters, so it's a delight to see him take on such a fun, villainous role.  He's clearly having a blast, and he crafts a villain who deserves a spot alongside Waltz's Hans Landa.  DiCaprio gives a larger than life performance that never once feels like a caricature; he colors the flamboyant propriety with sinister nuance, always flicking his cigarette or showing off his blackened smile at just the right moment.

As the head house slave (and in make-up that, to my eyes, makes him nigh unrecognizable), Jackson gets one of the film's funniest roles.  His Stephen takes advantage of his advanced age to spout off whatever comes to his not-so-addled mind, and the character takes a nice turn from being pure comedic relief to being a considerable villain himself.  There's something disturbing in Stephen, and in his relationship with Candie (not to mention the vaguely incestuous dynamic between Candie and his sister); the scenes DiCaprio and Jackson share are great, full of familial warmth and dangerous loyalty.

In true Tarantino fashion, Django is drenched in gushing fountains of blood, full of memorable characters, and doesn't feel nearly as long as it actually is.  The film also explores moments of more historical and emotional resonance, particularly in its depictions of the horror of slavery, which achieve a shock value without stylistic flourishes, but rather through straightforward depiction.  These moments of violent gravity gain even more weight when compared to the crimson-walled shootouts.  Django Unchained is a lot of fun, a brilliant ride, but it also recognizes the horrors of this part of American history, and paints a colorful picture of what would have been a just response.