It’s not possible for Quentin Tarantino to make an uninteresting film, but I would argue that Django Unchained may be his first bad one (depending on exactly how you felt about Death Proof, his half of Grindhouse), and left me underwhelmed. Is it in poor taste to make a slavery/spaghetti-western/blaxploitation mashup? Maybe it is, but I can’t judge something like that in a review. I just have to judge the film on its own terms, and Django shines in some stretches and aspects, but overall the film is scattershot, too long, and has a final thirty minutes that’s some of the weakest filmmaking in Tarantino’s career.
What Works: Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz are solid as a mismatched bounty hunting duo (Foxx is all killer-cool and Waltz tweaks his chatty nazi character from Inglorious Basterds into a cheerful good guy), but the movie really belongs to the villains. Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson don’t even show up until about an hour into the movie, but they own it henceforth. DiCaprio, clearly relishing his first out-and-out villain role, is a despicable blast as a plantation owner who can menacingly feed a slave to a pack of wild dogs one minute and happily start babbling niceties in the next, it’s a pretty good analogy for the entire casual-cruel way the racism in the South operates. But my favorite character (and performance) comes from Samuel L. Jackson as a sharper-than-you-think house slave who is the real brains behind the DiCaprio character, “the hand behind the throne” as Jackson has said. Jackson creates a full portrait of a man that many will find despicable (a lot of white reviewers have obliviously called Jackson’s character “worse than DiCaprio’s” when he’s just a man that has learned to survive in an awful situation), and that’s about the only thing of nuance in the film…
What Doesn’t Work: The final thirty minutes feels more like a Robert Rodriguez film than a Quentin Tarantino one. It’s all fake bloodshed and bullshit overkill (the ending is meant to be “ironic” 70’s grind house, but just feels cheap and uninspired) without any of the inventive and surprising violence that usually marks Quentin’s work. The first hour is okay, but nothing special, and more than a little draggy. And even though the main four characters are well-written, the supporting cast is pitifully underdeveloped with the great Walton Goggins (so good on TV, given so many thankless roles in movies) playing his umpteenth one-dimensional, sneering racist and Kerri Washington playing a nearly-mute slave love interest who has, maybe, two scenes of dialogue in the film. It’s unintentionally ironic that the entire movie revolves around saving this woman that is giving nothing to do but stare around with fear-stricken eyes (I don’t know that anyone will ever accuse Kerri Washington of under-acting a part). It doesn’t create a character for her, just an idea of a victim.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Like QT gives a shit. This is a director that could easily make his movies better by making them less indulgent and derivative, but he’s enjoying a more financially successful period than he ever has, so why does he care if they’re not as good creatively? His best movies are more intimate, surprising affairs (Pulp Fiction and, yes, even Jackie Brown) and he has no interest in going back to that period.