Movie Review: "Django Unchained"

"Django Unchained": B.  Here we go again, another Quentin Tarantino ketchup fest. This is the goriest buddy movie I have ever seen, maybe the goriest regardless of genre. Every shot by a good guy finds its target, which is more often than not a kneecap, the groin or the face. Bull whipping, sledge hammering and (threatened) castration with a Bowie knife are added to the repertoire, I guess for variety sake. The mayhem only seems comical when a woman is shot from relatively long range as she stands under an archway separating two rooms. The force of the bullet propells her backwards off her feet, like a mannequin being yanked in reverse by a puppet string tied around her waist. That one was so over-the-top that I could not help but laugh. As for the rest of the violence, I'm sure QT would state that it was core to his presentation of the story.

Christoph Waltz is one of my favorite actors, and he does not disappoint here. He plays Doctor King Schultz, a bounty hunter traveling in a horse drawn wagon through scruffy Texas, posing as a dentist and taking on the air of a charlatan. Schultz is looking for Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave whom the bounty hunter needs to identify the Brittle Brothers, who are "wanted dead or alive." Schultz particularly relishes the "dead" part; it is much easier to bring back the corpse of a convict to collect the bounty than it is to be inconvenienced with a live one. The first act of the movie details how Schultz encounters Django and turns him into a free man. Schultz promises Django that he will help the freed slave rescue his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) in return for Django's assistance in bagging wanted prey.

Their pursuits take them from Texas northeastward to Tennessee and finally to Mississippi. The Brittle Brothers aren't the only fugitives from justice that Schultz has on his agenda. He and Django's first stop in Daughtrey, Texas brings plenty of action and surprises. Ditto for their time in Tennessee. Wherever Schultz and Django go, blood and guts will ensue. It is ironic that one of the funniest scenes I have ever witnessed on the silver screen occurs in such a violent movie. During a raid of white hooded horsemen who are hoping to spring a nighttime surprise attack on Schultz and Django's campsite, the conversation turns to the comfort and fit of their homemade Klans-like hoods. Jonah Hill, totally out of place as a racist cowboy, participates in these verbal exchanges as one of the raiders. That scene ranks right up there on the humor scale with the flatulent campfire scene in Blazing Saddles.

The final third of the story takes place at Candyland, the fourth largest plantation in the state of Mississippi. The third generation estate owner is Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a baby faced but extremely cruel slave master. Tarantino's staging of life on the plantation is gruesome and depressing. One has to wonder if the portrayal accurately reflects what life was like for the slaves in the South. The "house slaves" have it better than the "field slaves," but even the former group is looked upon as chattel, an attitude supported by state law. It is not giving away too much to reveal that Broomhilda is, indeed, one of the slaves on Candyland. Schultz concocts a devious plan to acquire Broomhilda, but will he be able to outmaneuver Candie in negotiations to get what he's after? How will the black Django, even though ostensibly a free man, relate to the whites and blacks on the estate? Samuel L. Jackson, whom I did not at first recognize (I had forgotten he was in the cast), plays the suspicious Stephen, Candie's right hand man, an Uncle Tom who manages the house slaves.

When I posted my review of Goon on April 6, I wrote that I felt a level of shame for enjoying a movie with such low standards. Memories of that guilt came back to me as I watched Django Unchained. The violence and cold blooded, casual killing is so outlandish that there is entertainment for the viewer. Is it wrong for us to feel entertained, especially in today's gun-happy society? Tarantino has directed enough movies employing that style in the course of his career that an immunity develops among his viewers. What would you expect, in the present case, from a spaghetti western which QT wrote and directed?