Quentin Tarantino month: Django Unchained

A review by Brooks Rich

Hell yeah Django Unchained. This film rocks. Tarantino follows up Inglorious Basterds with a blood soaked western revenge film called Django Unchained. This film is violent, buckets of blood gory, and upsetting. But there’s a certain power in this film, and some unforgettable scenes. One can’t help but cheer as a runaway slave turned bounty hunter kills a bunch of racist slave owners and slave drivers one at a time. 

Jamie Foxx is Django Freeman, a slave who is freed from bondage by bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz, Christoph Waltz in his second Oscar-winning performance. I hope he’s in Tarantino’s last film and makes it a hat trick for Oscar wins directed by Tarantino. Django and Dr. King go undercover as a pair that organize fights between slaves, called Mandingo fighting, in order to save Django’s wife from the clutches of Calvin Candie, a sinister slave owner played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Violence and bloodshed unfolds.

Some moments in the film are difficult to watch....look at the scene with the slave in the tree for pure horror, for instance. But one feels a certain satisfaction anytime Django and Schultz take out someone . The scene with Don Johnson is fantastic and later on the raid Johnson and his cronies pull off is accompanied by a hilarious, but unnecessary, scene where they can’t see out of their bags, thus resulting in an argument about whether or not to wear them. This film has a great sense of humor at times, which helps in dealing with the horrific parts.

 But let’s be fair. This is not a realistic look at the slave trade and the struggle of slavery in the American south. Films like 12 Years a Slave exist to be experiences like that. This is a revenge fantasy, a slave rising up and taking down not only a vicious slave owner but also, in a way, the entire slave trade. In this film, if you profit from slavery, you die violently, and it’s completely satisfying every time we see it. 

Django Unchained is a great film..... but do not watch it if you don’t like excessive violence. Next to Kill Bill it’s probably Tarantino’s most violent film. It’s always a fun watch and is one of three Tarantino’s I watch constantly, next to Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. All of us at Cinema Basement give Django Unchained our seal of approval. Check it out.