‘Django Unchained’ is bloody and brilliant

Django Unchained is bloody, entertaining, disturbing, brilliant and one of the best films director Quentin Tarantino has ever made.

Just as much a spaghetti western as the films that inspired it, Django Unchained is a pitch-perfect revenge film with fantastic action, great dialogue and memorable characters. It also manages to address the inhumanity of American slavery with a cinematic gaze as unflinching as it is scathing.

Set two years before the Civil War, the film tells the story of Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who is liberated by the eccentric German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Schultz needs Django’s help in identifying the sadistic Brittle brothers, but after he sees Django’s aptitude for bounty hunting work, he offers to partner up with him, which Django agrees to.

When Schultz learns Django is intent on rescuing his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from slavery, he decides to help, and together they set a plan into motion to liberate her from the despicable plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Story-wise, Django Unchained is pure spaghetti western gold. Gray morality, brutal gunfights, the long road to ultimate revenge: all the trademarks of the genre are here. What distinguishes this movie, however, is its focus on the institution of slavery.

By showing slavery in its most barbaric and sadistic permutations, Django Unchained manages to both highlight a shameful chapter of American history and give the film’s protagonists some truly substantial justifications for revenge.

Of course, this wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if it wasn’t for the film’s memorable characters and the actors who played them.

Foxx’s Django is a powerful and commanding presence. By that same token, DiCaprio’s Calvin Candie is one of the most vile and loathsome villains I’ve seen grace a screen, and Samuel L. Jackson’s turn as Stephen, Candie’s slave and right-hand man, is both fascinating and nuanced.

The most interesting character by far, however, is Dr. King Schultz as played by Waltz in a truly memorable performance.

Cultured and eccentric, Schultz is a man who dislikes slavery, but is willing to use the institution to his advantage. Yet, as the movie goes on, we realize that, despite his detached affectation, Schultz is a bit of a white hat, or at least as much a white hat as one can be in a Tarantino movie.

Indeed, most of this brutal movie’s moral stands actually come from Schultz, the white, European bounty hunter, something I’m certain is going to be brought up and debated in media studies classes for quite some time.

The notable dud in the character department comes in the characterizations of some of the poor white henchmen of the slave owners.

Some bits, such as a lengthy scene ridiculing lynch mobs that Mel Brooks would be proud of, are excellently done, but there are a number of scenes and characters that just serve to other poor white Southerners and present them as dirty animals, perpetuating the tired stereotype of portraying them as the boogeymen that all Americans can comfortably loath.

I should add Django Unchained is not a movie for the faint of heart.

Not only does it feature almost cartoonish levels of blood and gore, but it also contains some truly disturbing scenes that made even a veteran moviegoer like myself feel uncomfortable.

To be fair, these scenes were all used in service of the plot, and I wouldn’t call any of them exploitative, but they do raise some troubling moral questions about the protagonists that aren’t easily answered.

Finally, there’s the soundtrack, which is one of Django Unchained’s best parts. Featuring music ranging from stirring orchestral arrangements to pulse-pounding rap, it serves as a fitting accompaniment and enhancer to the action on-screen.

Django Unchained is a bloody triumph of a movie, and with the range of conflicting emotions it produces, is best compared to Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter.

If you love a good western, want to see some fantastic acting and have a high tolerance for violence, then you need to see this film. It’s like nothing else in theaters, and I suspect we won’t be seeing anything else like it for quite some time. Leave the kids at home and experience it for yourself.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on January 3, 2013. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Columns,Movie Reviews,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry