Be assured that you will find something deeply disturbing about “Django Unchained”. Be it an image or the particular strain of dialogue heavily peppered with the N-word, there is plenty here to make you squirm. In fact if you don’t have issue, I would suggest that you go get yourself tested and have them start in the skull.
Director Quentin Tarantino continues his fantasy/history lesson that he began with “Inglorious Basterds” and changes out his Nazis for the slave traders of the 1800’s who dealt in human lives. This is Tarantino History, everything is heightened so in “Django” slaves are whipped, fight to the death for entertainment and are fed to the dogs. But luckily in Tarantino History, no injustice goes unpunished and past horrors are righted by revenge. The Buckets of blood flow, covering the plantation walls.
This seems to be the secret to the success of these movies. We can sit through any torture as long as there is retribution. With both “Basterds” and “Django,” Tarantino really tests that theory as he concocts a massive psychological cleansing that trivializes the worst days of our past. Political Correctness is the first victim, frame one, as we are asked to look at a horrible chapter in our history and laugh. The magic trick works as “Django Unchained” is easily Tarantino’s funniest film to date.
Django (Jamie Fox) is our hero, a former slave who has taken up the occupation of bounty hunter with some help from a former dentist named Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz). Dr. Shultz shows him this world of hunting man for money, a variation on the flesh trade that Django can easily get behind.
Once a free man, Django and Dr. Shultz head yonder to Mississippi to rescue his wife from a monster that goes by the handle of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). He calls his plantation Candie Land, a sweet name to mask the sad truth of the place. There are long negotiations, deceptions and trickery and, of course, many bullets fly.
As is true with most Tarantino films (“Pulp Fiction,” “Death Proof”) there is more talking than actual violence but the carnage is so raw and intense that the small doses are made to be just tolerable. While the words still crack with originality, “Django” is more restrained than we are used to. There are very little instances of twisting the film’s structure that is the norm with Tarantino and the story is told almost entirely in chronological order. Intelligent characters populate this American Spaghetti Western so sitting there for hours listening to them talk to each other is a treat. “Django Unchained” does bog down in the middle and 15/20 minutes could have easily been cut but Tarantino has never been one to hold back.
Fox is perfect as Django as he gives the man an intensity that is mandatory with these sorts of flicks. With the film’s delicate balance of comedy and brick-heavy drama, Fox hits the perfect combination of both. With the Academy Award winning performance as Col. Hans Landa in “Inglorious Basterds” and now the wondrous Dr. Schultz, Christoph Waltz may just be the best actor in the world at delivering Tarantino’s rants and tales. Waltz gives this film its heart and makes the hardest elements bearable. I call for another nom and another statue. Leonardo DiCaprio (who I guess only works with the BIG directors anymore: Scorsese, Nolan, Eastwood…) gives his Calvin Candie a burning menace but is never one-note. Candie is almost likable at points and wears a grin that masks the unbalance.
Not all is perfect, though, as Kerry Washington nearly kills every scene she’s in as Broomhilda, Django’s lost wife. She quivers and shakes through most of the movie and while there is plenty to react in horror too, the performance borders closely and often to overacting. This only stands out more as the rest of the cast is so pitch perfect.
Tarantino has now spent nearly a decade focused solely on the Revenge Picture. “Kill Bill” to “Death Proof,” Nazis to Slave Masters. This path has forced him to grow as a film director that has made him all but abandon two people talking endlessly in a coffee shop about the importance of bacon and what hamburgers are called in France. I say next up needs to be the Native Americans. He can call it “Last of the Muthaf*ckin’ Mohicans”.