Last year, I saw a movie that dealt with fantasy in the midst of a real time historical figures life. That movie was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer and that film was so bad, it was laughable. Django belongs alongside that movie. And while this movie didn't have any howler monkey type vampires, this movie was so truly ridiculous that I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Now honestly, I am NOT a Tarantino fan. My dislike for his so called talents started after Pulp Fiction and he put the nail in that coffin with Inglorious Basterds. As a filmmaker, he's a thief and a hack, and as a story teller he's sorely lacking so I really had no desire to see Django Unchained. To say I didn't get all excited when the trailer hit would be putting it mildly. My sphincter muscle didn't constrict at all and the movie didn't really register on my radar. There were other movies I was waiting for with more anticipation, like LUV. Why? Because I just figured it was going to be another sloppy film making effort by someone who should never have left his job working the movie video store. Then I saw the trailer and literally said out loud, "There's no way I'm seeing this shit."
It stars the Oscar award winner Jamie Foxx as the title character who was recently bought at a slave auction. He and four other slaves are making the long trek back to their new plantation when they get intercepted by Oscar award nominee Christoph Waltz who plays Dr. King Schultz, a dentist/bounty hunter. How the doc knows when and where Django and his party are going to be or where they just came from is a mystery that's never answered. Dr. Schultz is on the trail of the Brittle brothers but he has no idea what they look like. How he knows that Django knows what they look like is again, another mystery never answered. Dr. Schultz liberates Django and the other slaves and from their slavers and rides off with Django. He explains to Django what he does for a living, that he's not really a dentist, that like slavery he is in the flesh for money business, and how being a foreigner detests the very notion of slavery. Django reveals he has a wife and while he has no idea who owns her, he knows where she was sold into bondage.
After the demise of the Brittle brothers, Dr. Schultz proposes the two of them team up, continue collecting bounties and when the winter is over, they find Django's wife and free her. Django's wife, Broomhilda, played by the very talented Kerri Washington is the property of Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and is working on his plantation known as Candyland. Dr. Schultz and Django meet up with Calvin in Mississippi and pretend to want to get into the Mandingo fighting business. During that meeting, Django meets the original Django, the man who played Django in the 1966 film of the same name, Franco Nero who plays Amerigo Vessepi, he's the man Jamie spells his name to, which I'm guessing is supposed to be a funny inside joke. Yes boys and girls, even the name of this movie is unoriginal. Just when Dr. Schultz and Calvin are about to work out a side deal for Broomhilda, Stephen the head house slave, played by Samuel L. Jackson explains what's really going on and then all hell ensues.
Django, who has supposedly never handled a gun before he met Dr. Schultz, becomes lethal with them during the winter the two men spend together. The shootout in Candyland is over the top ridiculously violent, and completely unnecessary, but since it's a Tarantino film, its accepted. Django takes on all of Candie's field hands until he runs out of bullets and gives up. He's sold to a mining company where while they are en route, he outwits his captors and heads back to Candyland for his wife. Now, is Django Unchained a good film? It depends on who you ask. If you're asking me, I'd say no. Django Unchained allows Quentin to indulge himself in using one of his favorite words repeatedly and getting a pass because, well the story takes place during slavery. The story, one of the most paper thin plots I've run across in some time. This movie supposedly shows what a man will go through to get his wife, and while that is admirable, it's not a good film. Quentin has learned no new tricks regarding film making, so this looks like everything else he's ever done. It's turned out to be one of his most profitable, and that's not surprising to me at all. People paid for a ticket out of pure curiosity, others are unwavering fans of this talentless hack of a filmmaker. I'm just glad I didn't pay to see it.
Django Unchained shows you nothing new, nor does it teach you anything you shouldn't already know about slavery, but just in case you were wondering, this movie takes place well before bounty hunting ever even existed in this country. Skip it and see something else if you haven't already seen it, and I'll see you at the theater.
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