Sergio Leone's famous spaghetti western 'For A Few Dollars More' begins with the words: ''Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared.'' These words do not feature in 'Django Unchained' but they would've fit in quite nicely in Quentin Tarantino's latest. Jamie Foxx stars as a freed slave who sets out to rescue his wife with the help of a German bounty hunter.
Like all of Tarantino's movies 'Django Unchained' is heavily influenced by the cheap exploitation films of the 60s and 70s. There's a lot of off-beat music and old fashioned camera movements and editing. The result is a eclectic film with many fantasticly executed scenes. However, 'Django' suffers from the same flaws as Tarantino's previous film 'Inglourious Basterds', more on that later.
The acting is amazing, Tarantino knows how to the get the best out of his actors. Christoph Waltz excells as Dr. King Schultz, a man who switched jobs from dentist to bounty hunter. The German actor has a flair for eccentric but dangerous individuals. Foxx, on the other hand, is a more coolheaded. This might be due to fact that Django himself is the least interesting character in the movie.
The main villains are Leonardo DiCaprio's devious plantation owner Calvin Candie and his most loyal slave Stephen, played by Samuel L. Jackson. Surprisingly, Stephen shares his master's convictions about the inferiority of African-Americans, even though he is a black man himself. Django and Schultz might not be the most honourable heroes ever to grace the silver screen, but Candie and Stephen are so twisted it's hard not to root for them.
The duo devise an elaborate plan to free Django's wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from Candyland and live happily ever after. Of course, much like in 'Inglourious Basterds', things don't go as planned, resulting in a graphic, but terrific, shootout. I haven't seen gun battles as bloody as these since Paul Verhoeven stopped making movies in the US of A.
Tarantino's filmmaking prowess allows for some great moments but he's hampered by an inability to rein himself in. Much like in 'Basterds' his dialogues, smart as they are, go on for far too long. It's too bad because, had 'Django Unchained' been shorter and more focused, it would've been a great film. On the other hand, the problems are less prominent than in 'Inglourious Basterds'.
One thing must be said, Quentin Tarantino has balls. Once again he has dared to make a subject as potentially offensive as slavery into a revisionist take on history. Much like in 'Basterds' the bad guys get what is coming to them. We get to see what punishment the Calvin Candies of the world deserve.
Still, the severity of their punishment will make most viewers feel uncomfortable and, in a way, it lessens the heroisms of our protagonists. That's the funny thing about stories of revenge, they might be enjoyable, but in reality they are not quite moral. Tarantino appears to say that creating a fictional payback might be one of the best and most harmless ways to settle the score with all of history's wrongs.
