Django Unchained
Quentin Tarantino has made nearly an entire career out of expressing his love for the types of films that most respected filmmakers turn their noses up at and the spaghetti western genre is no exception. But only Tarantino would make a Western that is set in The American South in the 1850s (at the height of slavery) and not only make it a violent, bloody, nasty shoot em up like only he can, but also use the opportunity to explore the complexity and psychology of racism both then and now. To that end, this 2012 film would set the currently standing record for most uses of the dreaded N word in a single movie and feature a hero (Jamie Foxx) who openly states a number of times in the film just how much he enjoys killing white people (and kill a lot of them he does). Foxxâs character (Django) is the namesake of a Western movie hero from the 1970s played by the legendary (white) actor Franco Nero who even briefly appears here alongside Foxx in a knowing cameo.  But the even more interesting piece of casting is in that of Christoph Waltz (unforgettable in his Oscar winning turn as The Jew Hunter in Tarantinoâs Inglorious Basterds) playing a dentist turned bounty hunter who also appears to have a certain agenda when traveling around killing outlaws in The Old American South. It seems that Waltzâs character is some kind of a European progressive who is disgusted by the notion of slavery but many times in order to achieve his goals of taking down bad guys in hiding must not only pretend to be a slave trader but also pretend to be an outright racist all while being around real white racists who mustnât catch on to his deception (since many of them are harboring and / or on friendly terms with the mostly white fugitives). But eventually his true feelings about racism and the treatment of black people in The South can be hidden no longer and then his excellent gunfighting abilities must come into play. Itâs the type of role and performance that people on the movie awards circuit eat up with a spoon, culminating with Waltzâs second win of The Best Supporting Actor Oscar (with the argument being made that he should have been considered a lead since his screentime did break the record for the most of anyone onscreen to have won a Supporting Acting Oscar). The film begins with Foxxâs Django being dragged along as part of a slave chain gang until they and the white slave trader bosses happen upon Waltz and his little caravan. Waltz explains that one of these men used to belong to a particular plantation and thus knows the faces and identities of some fugitives who used to work there that he is currently tracking. That of course is Django and when the bosses see Waltz talking to him as if he were a regular person, that prompts them to draw their rifles and tell him that they wonât be doing any business with him which compels Waltz to draw his piece and blow both of them away before telling the remaining slaves to âmove to a more enlightened part of the countryâ.  That being said and done, Waltz and Foxx take off and not only take down the bad guys that they were looking for but Waltz himself decides to take Foxx under his wing and teach him everything that he needs to know about not only the use of firearms but also in how to get the best tactical advantages on your opponents. After a pretty hilarious row at a plantation owned by Don Johnson, Foxx confides to Waltz what it is that heâd like to do more than anything: to find and retrieve his slave wife from the plantation where she had been sold to. That plantation happens to belong to Leonardo DiCaprio in an epic performance that not only surpasses Waltzâs, but is just so repellent in the cultured yet ignorant air that he carries about him that Tarantino would later admit that this was his least favorite character whom he has ever written, but that doesnât stop DiCaprio from playing him with nothing less than absolute relish, first seen enjoying what is known as a âmandingo fightâ (i.e. two black men beating each other to a bloody mess while their masters place bets on the outcome) and it turns out that having black men beat each other to a pulp is really and truly a passion of DiCaprioâs as he aspires to have the best âstableâ in the south that can help him humble the other plantation owners and take their money as well. Foxx and Waltz (knowing full well that Foxxâs wife is among the household staff) approach DiCaprio on the pretense of actually purchasing one of his top fighters instead. See, Waltz has devised these little âundercoverâ schemes in which he has explained to Foxx in such a way that they will be playing âcharactersâ and that Foxx must not âbreak characterâ if they are to succeed even though Waltzâs motivation to risk his own neck (in a situation where they are not actually collecting a bounty for money) is questionable at best. Is he doing it in order to allow true love to bloom? Because itâs a righteous cause? Because he owes Django for helping him make so much money? That sketchy reasoning seems unclear except maybe for the fact that Waltz is almost meant to be a crusader of sorts (or at least thinks of himself as such) and as much as Waltz dominates the first hour of this near 3 hour movie, as soon as DiCaprio comes on with his deliciously lip smacking portrayal of Old Southern Evil, Waltz seems to become a little more phased out while still being part of the story as Foxx is mostly shown throughout as being someone who carefully observes whatâs going on around him even as the notion of having white people see him riding around on a horse is enough to make them reach into their jackets and stroke the handles of their pieces just in case. DiCaprio quickly notices too that Django has a habit of talking back to white people and / or giving them hard looks and then thereâs Samuel L. Jackson as the head of the household (aka a house ngger) in one of the most sordid Uncle Tom / Stepin Fetchit type characters ever portrayed onscreen. Not only enabling but also taking a very active role in the suppression of his fellow slaves, it comes as little surprise that when Foxxâs Django unleashes a storm of bloody violence late in the film, he just so happens to reserve a very special and undignified fate for Jacksonâs Stephen unlike most of the others who get treated to a quick death usually through head shots and the like. It is Jackson who finds out and then betrays Waltzâs intentions to DiCaprio that Waltz is just pretending to be interested in purchasing a black mandingo fighter before casually cutting a side deal to also buy up Djangoâs wife (Kerry Washington) and then taking off never to return with the proper paperwork to acquire the fighter. This leads to a scene that may very well go down in DiCaprioâs Hall Of Fame reel in one of the best psychological buildups ever seen, bringing out the skull of a dead black servant and then launching into a diatribe of why and how the passive, compliant nature of black slaves would seem to be a natural attribute of theirs which is why he has always felt comfortable around them on a daily basis unlike the way that he feels around Django (whom he has always been suspicious of). This scene betrays two key things about the DiCaprio character: The first being that for all of his wealth and southern gentleman demeanor, he really is completely unsophisticated and knows little to nothing about the world outside of his own plantation (he prefers to portray himself as being French but Waltz is explicitly told not to speak French around him since he doesnât really understand a word of it) and second, having always suspected Waltz of being some kind of a white subversive type with a particular sympathy towards blacks (aka ngger lover), DiCaprio spends much of his time around Waltz (and Foxx) working the psychology of demonstrating just how horribly inhumane he can be towards black people (including giving the order to have a runaway slave be torn apart by dogs in front of his âguestsâ) in an attempt to see if he can get a rise out of one or both of them (with Foxx himself at one point actually needing to do some quick thinking so that Waltz doesnât blow their cover) and thus basically test their consciences. In the end, a truly magnificent villain performance (and perhaps the best villain in Tarantinoâs filmography) and one that elevates this film from being a heavy handed exercise in bloody Western violence to an enjoyable battle of wits amongst some of the best actors working todayâŚ
8/10