Django Unchained (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway 

Django Unchained 

The cocky auteur Quentin Tarantino is at it again with his brand of drive-in movie history as entertainment to the delight of his fans and rightly so.

This time he takes on the awful scourge of slavery before the Civil War. Tarantino succeeds better here in my opinion, in contrast to his gore Pop of "Inglourious Basterds". That film although richly delivered by Christoph Waltz as the Nazi villain you love to hate depended too much on blood and ironic jokes. 

But here in "Django Unchained" we have more story and less surface with obvious homages to Sergio Corbucci, Jamie Foxx plays Django, a man enslaved, tortured and bound in chains, with no hope for freedom. The name Django is a tribute to the antihero Django played by Italian actor Franco Nero. By chance, the oppressors, the Speck Brothers, see a wisecracking German dentist, King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) along a dark road. Schultz is a bounty hunter, no doubt, but as he drives a dark carriage with a huge creaky tooth on the roof, not to mention his speech, Schultz is a bit of a vampire. (Don't worry; he is very good natured to nice folks). Using his guns in a violent turn, Schultz frees Django and the two of them resolve to basically hunt down every slave owner and disgusting bigot that they possibly can and hopefully reunite Django with his wife (Kerry Washington).

 Under less gifted hands, this film could have been a static and joyless experience. And indeed, "Inglourious Basterds" did me cold. "Django Unchained" however, is filled with enough rolling and rollicking motion that you are never left emptily pondering your popcorn bag. Foxx and Waltz have a spirit and actually share adventures together. The villains, for their part are no vacuous fleshpots of dastardliness, but rather beings of real hate, evil and smarmy anger. 

Leonardo DiCaprio's Mr. Candie is a conniving snake under his paper doily facade of comic Southern charm. People are livestock to him and profanely, this is how it was, but probably more so. 

While it’s true this film is a bloody mess at times, it doesn't pander and exposes the utter horror of the times. As if to further illustrate this, there is Samuel L. Jackson, who gives a shocking performance as a hateful apostle-butler for the cause of slavery.

 But it isn't all a gore-spill. The KKK scene with comedian Jonah Hill complaining about the nefarious hood blocking his vision will have you hooting. There is enough wit, (delivered by both good and bad characters) to keep things moving. 

There is one chilling scene in particular in which slave-owner Candie delivers his hideous eugenic philosophy. "Django Unchained” is a triumph for this alone. 

The only thing that irks me is not the violence onscreen, (Tarantino does an excellent job in showing the evils of slavery as a thing of great profanity while bigots are slippery and ludicrous with their offense and coldness) it is the director himself who betrayed what seemed a lack of sensitivity, while the film's premiere was delayed in light of the Newtown shootings. He is reported to have dismissed concerns of gun violence, saying "Gimme a break, it’s a Western." 

The only thing that irks me is not the violence onscreen, (Tarantino does an excellent job in showing the evils
of slavery as a thing of great profanity while bigots are slippery and ludicrous with their offense and coldness)
it is the director himself who betrayed what seemed a lack of sensitivity, while the film's premiere was delayed 
in light of the Newtown shootings. He is reported to have dismissed concerns of gun violence, saying 
"Gimme a break, it’s a Western." 

While this was quite disheartening to hear, it in no way should take away from the theatrical bravado and 
power of the film, which shows the terror as well as the superciliousness of racism. "Django Unchained" 
is worlds above Mel Brooks not to mention the genre of the beloved Spaghetti Western. 

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com