Django Unchained

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2013)

I've often felt that when Quentin Tarantino directs his own scripts the results are for the most part huge successes for critics and his admirers as well. When he has written something like Natural Born Killers, or True Romance, both of which were directed by other directors, they had some mildly interesting moments, but for the most part did not work. Here we have Django Unchained, which he has both written and directed and while I am a Tarantino fan, I have to be honest and say that it is the weakest, or at least one of the weakest of his films as a writer and a director. I was a little torn and undecided exactly what to say in this review because there were certainly parts of this new epic that I really admired and considered to be quite well done. On the other hand, there were parts that were terrible and an ordeal to sit through which made the film feel uneven and the 2 hours and 45 minutes of the film dragged, I mean really dragged. I could understand that he wanted to revisit familiar territory and make a spaghetti western with a combination of a blaxploitation film thrown in as well. Whether you like Tarantino, or not, you will have to admit that a lot of his ideas and concepts are borrowed from older, or basically other people's films. He seems to repeat and show the same type of story lines, dialogue and style in almost all of his movies, which I guess is paying off due to the high box office grosses of the films and also the numerous award nominations as well. Django, did not work because it tried to do too many things at once and on almost all accounts it failed. There were times when it tried to be humorous and it tried to set up a gag, or a punch line for amusement, but those scenes just felt so out of place and it didn't seem like Tarantino knew what he was writing and the actors often seemed clumsy and having difficulty delivering these lines and scenes. Instead of being interesting, or funny, or humorous as it's intentions were it just felt painfully awkward and like scenes that belonged in another way different type of film. I know I have criticized others droning on about the length of one's film before, but this time I can not excuse Django Unchained, because it's pacing and timing was all over the place and felt like an editing mishap and overall a mess. We have so many scenes that just do not work because they are written and performed awkwardly and they don't seem to have any clear purpose, or reason for being in the film other than to use up time. Take director Michael Cimino for example. Heaven's Gate has a scene that lasts a very long time when they are at the character's university early on in the film. The scenes goes on for a very long time, but has little to say and has no real relevance, or has any point, or purpose being in the film. It just drags. Same with his The Deer Hunter, which I like considerably more than Heaven's Gate, but what about the wedding scene in that film? The same thing. It goes on without any real purpose, or anything relevant to say. That is one of Tarantino's big problems with Django Unchained, it is almost like he wrote a bunch of ideas down on cue cards and when it came time to pulling together a script, he had to use every single last idea, note, or brainstorming idea he had and put them all in this film whether they worked, or not, or even made the film seem messy and jumbled. He didn't really seem to care. I have nothing against long films, or even films that have slower scenes in them, but they have to offer some kind of benefit to the film, the story, or the overall experience of the film. If not, having them in there just makes the film long, ambiguous and tiresome. There were things I liked about Django Unchained, particularly the supporting performances by Christoph Waltz (who continues to shine after Inglourious Basterds), Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. They are all at the top of their game here. One thing I really missed in this film that is more evident in other Tarantino films, is his flare for dialogue. My favourite scene of the whole film is where the main characters are sitting at a dinner table and Tarantino, creates tension and a mood because of his great knack of dialogue, what the characters say and getting these great actors to play it. I wish there had been more scenes like that in the film, but unfortunately there were not. The action scenes this time seemed a little too over the top and corny and a lot of the film did too, which further made me wonder what type of a mood Tarantino was going for. A lot of it just really seemed like they were trying to ham it up and be ridiculous, but those scenes were followed by others of extreme brutality and gruesomeness that didn't work either. I continue to admire Tarantino as a writer and filmmaker and while Django Unchained had a few honourable merits, there were not enough for me to call this a great film, or make me want to see it again.