Movie Review - Django Unchained

  Django Unchained (2012)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Cristoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio

Maybe the biggest mistake I made prior to seeing Django Unchained was that I watched Pulp Fiction the night before.  With regards to Tarantino flicks, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are easily my favorites, and I believe those two movies stand head and shoulders above the rest of his oeuvre.  Watching Pulp Fiction reminded that that movie was a masterpiece and Tarantino hasn't come close to touching it since.  By comparison, Django couldn't help but fall a bit flat.  It isn't bad, but isn't great.  I'm surprised the movie was nominated for Best Picture, but that is probably an indication of how much sway the production company responsible for it holds, and also what a relatively weak year it was for movies.

Watching Pup Fiction and Django back-to-back also really reinforced for me how Tarantino has evolved as a filmmaker.  In the beginning, his movies were mostly serious works with wacky, exploitation elements mixed in.  Around the time of Jackie Brown (the worst Tarantino movie by a mile, most would agree), he switched over to just making exploitation films.  With a requisite sense of irony, of course.  Kill Bill (the last Tarantino movie I truly loved), was also the last one to balance these elements effectively, I thought.  The movie was violent, over-the-top, and ridiculous, but the story was actually pretty heartfelt, and there were some genuinely sincere and moving moments.

Since then though, starting with Inglorious Basterds (which I thought was overrated), and continuing with Django, Tarantino has continued to dial up the ridiculousness and, in the process, lost some of the heart that made his earlier movies so captivating.  Django is actually the silliest Tarantino movie ever.  It ventures further into the realm of pure slapstick comedy than any Tarantino film before it.  And it is legitimately very funny.  There were plenty of scenes that had me laughing out loud. I can also appreciate the irony of Quentin Tarantino making comedy out of a subject as serious as slavery.  But overall, I think that Django fails to be more the sum of its parts.

There are times when it is hilarious, and there are times when it is terrifying, or heartbreaking.  But the movie fails to take all these elements and capture the kind of overall cohesiveness that made Pulp Fiction so great. Django movie just doesn't click the way great movies do.  Overall, I consider it a collection of really great scenes that fails to add up to a great movie.  A good one, sure, but not a great one.  It doesn't help that Tarantino, like many great directors, could really use an editor.  Often times, when a director gets famous beyond the point of anyone being able to tell him how or what he can cut, his movies start to take on a bloated feel.  This movie is pushing the bounds of the three-hour mark, and there were tons of go-nowhere scenes in Django, that, if cut, may have made things flow somewhat better.  When the action goes to the Candyland plantation in particular, the story starts to drag quite a bit before picking up again and ending on a high note.

The pacing may leave something to be desired, but one thing I can't praise enough about Django is the performances.  Through some mastery, Tarantino has coaxed incredible performances out of a variety of different actors over the years, and Django continues in that grand tradition.  I found it interesting that Waltz won an Academy Award for his performance here because, although he was impressive, I found his performance to be, at best, the third-best in the film.  Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio are incredible.  In particular, I think this may be the best performance of DiCaprio's adult career, and it's a shame he wasn't acknowledged by the Academy.  The degree to which those two completely threw themselves into what were no doubt very difficult roles is truly admirable.  Django, in true Tarantino fashion, also features tons of cameos from notables like James Remar and Walton Goggins, who are all great.  Jamie Foxx is solid, too.  He is very charismatic and really sells the transformation that his character undergoes throughout the film.

Overall, Django Unchained is a fine movie worth watching, but I can't help but feel that Tarantino is capable of so much more.  As much as I would love to see the director continue to make these altered history movies where he rights all of history's wrongs (Jews kill Hitler in Basterds, slave kills slavers in Django), I hope that he purses some different material with his next film.  I would like to see the director let Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds, and Django Unchained stand as his own "vengeance trilogy" (along the lines of Park Chan-wook), and hopefully move on to new, more inspired material.


Verdict: 7/10