Classic Western FIlm With So Much More

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2019)

The man that brought you Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds has struck gold once more with his near 3 hour work of art, Django Unchained. Django Unchained includes incredible performances from some of Tarantino's favorite actors like Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christoph Waltz. Tarantino keeps his signature long running time in Django, but trust me, you won't want it to be any shorter.
The film begins in the deep south, two years before the civil war. The movie simply prints this information in the opening scene, but not because the film is lazy, but rather because the setting is so vital to the story, it needs to be emphasized and obvious. In the opening scenes of the film we meet the two main characters; Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a skilled bounty hunter who uses his old career as a cover, and Django (Jamie Foxx), a rebellious, strong-willed slave with an unending desire to reunite with his lost wife. Dr. King Schultz approaches Django, who is heavily chained with a few other slaves, and uses some persuasive actions to get Django's old owners to sell Django to him, and thus their journey of vengeance, wealth, and unrelenting human spirit begins.
As the film is set in a time of immense racial divide, it easily works to serve as a mirror for America and what it used to stand for. The harsh, emotion evoking dialogue is felt right from the beginning of the film, as the n-word is used by white people in a shockingly common way. Tarantino uses this language to not only make it impossible for the viewer to forget they are in the 1850s, but also to make a statement about race, and how truly despicable some people were back in this era.
There is a point in the movie where some will likely think Tarantino went too far to show this racism, but I believe it was a perfectly crafted sequence that made the viewer feel the slaves' pain, as well as showcase character development in Dr. King Schultz. In this troubling scene, two of Calvin Candie's (Leonardo Dicaprio) are brutally fighting to the death with their bare hands. It is an extremely graphic and eye opening scene that will likely stir up controversy, as to whether or not it needed to be in the film. During the fight, the camera pans to Dr. King Schultz and he is pictured actually wincing for the two men that are being forced to fight. While this may seem like a normal reaction, it is actual out of the norm for those in the room, as everyone else who is watching, especially Calvin Candie, is somehow disgustingly into it, treating it like a normal sporting event. In the moment that he winces, we see how some people of that time knew how wrong slavery was. Dr. King Schultz is a man who had become completely callous to blowing someone's head off at point blank range, but here we see him deeply troubled by the unjust way slaves are treated. As tough to watch as the scene was, it served an important role in developing the movie's characters, as well as its worldly themes.
The dynamic that Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz created onstage is also something that needs to be praised. Christoph Waltz's character serves as somewhat of a father figure to a Jamie Foxx that is able to develop from a helpless slave to strong, independent, gun-slinging bounty hunter. Their journey is the main event of the movie and they nail it. Of course they receive some help later in the film from Decaprio, and the way he becomes completely immersed in the role of a ruthless plantation owner; which is seen best during the dinner scene and fighting scene toward the end of the film.
Django Unchained stands very well as another Tarantino classic. While it does great as a bloody old western film, it also brings the viewer through a sophisticated emotional journey pairing themes of remembering this horrible mistreatment of a race with men who showcase the undying and unrelenting nature humans have and will always have through the ages.