Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Another outing in Tarantino’s 100% accurate history simulators, Django Unchained tells of Jamie Foxx’s Django, and his unchaining, at the hands of a bounty hunter, Christoph Waltz’s Dr. King Schultz, initially to help him identify some bounties, but soon becoming a partnership, and friendship, with Schultz agreeing to help Django rescue his wife, Kerry Washington’s Broomhilda, from the plantation house of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Calvin J. Candie.
A perhaps overly brief summation of nearly three hours of cinema, although Django sure as hell doesn’t feel it’s length, but as mentioned in reviews passim this is less about the narrative – although it’s more than strong enough for this sort of thing – but about the characters, from Foxx’s steely resolve, to the disarmingly charming Dr. Schultz, and the on the surface equally disarmingly charming Candie, although that’s a mask that slips quickly, backed up by a who’s who’s of nigh on everyone Tarantino’s worked with in memorable roles from the minor to major, like the incredible Samuel L. Jackson’s Stephen Warren.
It’s very much taking the cartoon alternate history ball of Basterds and volleying it into any and all nets available, being to Spaghetti Westerns as Basterds was to jingoistic war films. While, for once, this has thematic content that could conceivably be analysed, dealing of course with the acts and legacy of slavery in America, at the risk of being dismissive of Tarantino’s development as a director and person, I suspect that still, if questioned most of the reasons for anything that’s happening here would be answered “because I thought it would be cool and/or funny”.
And again, it is cool and funny. Very much so. The most so, arguably. Across the board the cast are excellent, the characters are charming and/or loathsome, the over the top violence is amusingly comedic, and overall it’s just a great deal of fun, if not a film, apparently, that I can say a great deal about that I’ve not said about Tarantino’s prior work. It is very good, I, it seems, am not.