Django Unchained (2012)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio
Genre: Western
Length: 2 hours 45 minutes
Premise: In 1858 in the deep south a German bounty hunter comes across a group of slaves. One of them is Django, the only witness to the identity of three outlaws being hunted by the German. Django is freed and joins forces with the bounty hunter. As a reward for the former slaves help, the pair travels to a notorious plantation in Mississippi to rescue Django's wife who's a slave there.
Review: If you don't care about logic or characters acting within the framework of the movie, then you just might like Quentin's nod to the Spaghetti Western. At almost 3 hours I found the movie painfully long. If you're going to make a 3 hour movie it needs to be a sweeping epic or have deep characters who's complexities grow during the length of the movie...But that doesn't happen here.
Django Unchained is just a fun, shoot up film to enjoy while you guzzle your favorite beverage and eat voluminous amounts of your favorite snack.
Django Unchained ask you to swallow a lot too, all in the name of kitsch film making. We are introduced to the film with a promising start, the German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) is the one interesting character in the film. The German is smart, savvy and uses the letter of the law to his own advantage. With his silver tongue and fancy vocabulary he can get out of sticky situations.
SPOILER......Yet towards the climax of the film, the German stubbornly refuses to shake the hand of the plantation owner, after being forced to overpay for a slave. Because Quentin wants to get to the blood bath scene that follows, he has the German do something stupid and out of character.... he shoots the plantation owner, then turns and says, 'I couldn't help it' as he is cut down by a gunmen in the room. But wait! the bounty hunter is a fast draw and a crack shot and he had one more shot left in his derringer, but doesn't bother to use it...very illogical.
But that's what one expects when the director has to plaster his own face in the movie. Tarantino makes fast food films. Don't expect the characters to act true to their nature. The director doesn't care and he expects the audience won't either.
After all the only thing this movie is good for is a high body count. And you'll get that. Along with an annoyingly, ecliptic movie soundtrack. What a waste, this could have been a great film, but then again it's a Tarantino written and directed piece of entertainment.
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